Listen my children, and you shall hear of the difference between a Vacation and a Family Outing. Every other year our extended family picks a different location to spend a week together. Cousins, siblings, second cousins once removed, all pile into the mix. Getting together at biennial Family Outings is more fun than just meeting at family funerals. With our time together limited to a week, the odds of bloodshed and violent disagreements are kept to an acceptable risk.
This year we went to semi-exotic Cedar City, Utah. The house we rented could have starred in the old HBO series “Big Love” about an interesting polygamous Mormon family. From the outside, the house looked like a standard two-story McMansion. Inside was a different story. The listing said it could sleep 30, which turned out to be accurate. We only had nine so there was lots of room. There was one gigantic master bedroom for the Lord of the Manor and his wife of the night. There were 8 other bedrooms suitable for lady sister wives and rooms filled with bunk beds for their multiple offspring. A large room in the basement had been turned into a media room with a giant screen for movie nights. The media room had thick cinder block walls braced by huge iron ceiling beams suitable for surviving the Apocalypse. It had a storage area for keeping a year’s supply of food. Its wooden door could be replaced with an iron door to keep out starving neighbors and other riff raff. It was pretty groovy.
Cedar City is a fine mile high city with about 39,000 people. It sits comfortably near Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks. First up was a trip to Bryce Canyon which is so dramatic that it does not look real. Bryce has hoodoos which are twisted wind and rain-shaped rocks the color of paprika. We had an interesting experience the next day at Zion. Tourists must leave their cars outside to take a bus into the actual park. This results in a long twisting rope line like Disneyworld. When we finally got to the end of the line, the usher told our group to go to the front of the bus to sit in the Old Folks Seats. I did not know whether to be insulted or grateful. I pondered slumping over in my seat and drooling to better fit in with our seating arrangement. After many hours of hiking in the park, on the bus on the way back people got up to give us their seats. We must really look old. At that point, I considered running for President.
When it was my turn to make breakfast, I cooked two pounds of bacon. This decision was jeered at as excessive. But in keeping with an unbroken world record, there was no leftover bacon. There never will be leftover bacon. It does not happen. The concept of leftover bacon is as elusive as Big Foot. Towards the end of the week, we ran out of Must See Sights. Despite our being calendar enhanced, we had to go see one final thing. A lively debate broke out as to how to spend our last afternoon. Finally, the decision was made to go see an abandoned ironworks. The lure of the ironworks by its proponents was that “It was not very far and not very interesting.” It would not take much time. With such a ringing endorsement, who could resist?
After supper the last night, we had the opportunity for one more world-shaking decision. Upon washing the dishes in the dishwasher, should we take all the dishes out and return them to their rightful places in the cupboards or leave them in the dishwasher? The issue was raised because of conflicting instructions in the house rules. One house rules binder said to leave the dishes in the dishwasher. On a separate handout, it said to replace them in their cubbies. A surprising amount of heat and volume ensued in this discussion.
Clearly, this was a more tangled web than bringing peace to the Middle East. Advocates for each side of the dish territorial issue loudly expressed their irrevocable irreconcilable positions. The debate got so colorful and heated that I even came back into the living room as a UN observer to see what would happen next. (Author’s Note: I would go see a 2 headed goat) At this point, the Vacation morphed into a Family Outing. Ultimately the Remain in the Dishwasher position won out through sheer force of will.
The next morning all was forgiven and we scattered like dust in the wind.

(Illustration by Pitt Dickey)