It could be the location, the weather or just the wrong choice at the wrong time but one nightmare vacation is enough to last a lifetime. Looking back over those nightmare vacations is a learning curve and makes up part of who we are and what we learned, not just about the vacation but about ourselves as well.

Newly married with limited funds, my new husband suggested we try camping. We had good friends who were interested in going with us, so we set out to plan our first camping trip. This was 25 years ago, long before people researched everything on the internet or had cell phones.

We chose to travel to North Carolina and Tennessee to visit the Smokey Mountains. We sent away for travel brochures and the planning began. The four of us decided to shop together so we would coordinate our purchases and not buy items we did not need. We shopped for tents, sleeping bags and a small charcoal grill.

Our plans complete, and I must admit I was nervous. I was not exactly the camping type but I knew this was important to my new husband. I worried more about real bathrooms and a warm shower everyday. We chose state parks because they had all these necessary amenities that cared for those needs and helping to take a little of the worry away.

Majestic mountains, rolling hills and fresh air, here we come. I found myself a bit excited anticipating this new adventure. Our travel time would be approximately fifteen hours and we wanted to make our first destination by dark. Leaving before the sun came up, we were ready to go. The trip was going well and we had decided to follow our friends and that they would be the lead car for the first part of our trip. About five hours after leaving home, a flat tire slowed us down but our moods were good and nothing was going to stop us from reaching our first campsite.

Then we got lost. I do not mean we took a short detour; we were lost. We were on a back road with no direction signs, no gas stations and of course we had no phones. A little tension was beginning to creep in and we were all equally tired. Pulling off the road and watching our husbands looking over the map, shaking their heads, did not help my friend or me to feel any better.

On the road again and judging we were about two hours behind schedule, added to the concern of finding our park before dark. At the first sign of a town, we stopped and asked, or rather begged for directions. Confident we were back on track we headed

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