Elizabeth K

Not so Fun in the Sun

If you don’t wear sunscreen when you are out in the sun, you are putting the consequences on yourself. I am not talking about skin cancer or anything like that…I am talking about sun poisoning. From experiences it is the worst thing I could ever re-live when it comes to sicknesses. Just listen to this..

Family vacations are rare when it comes to a big family. So when I was nine years old, hearing I was going to Florida for spring break was the best news of my life! On top of that, we were planning on going to SeaWorld and Disneyworld! All my friends had been before and talked about it so I had a lot to look forward too. I couldn’t hold my excitement in.

I was packed a week ahead of time I was so excited. This whole trip sounded too good to be true.  The week before we left was the longest week I had ever experienced it felt like. We had a countdown in the kitchen on the refrigerator and everything. The whole family was ready to go.

The morning came to finally get in the car and drive 12 hours to Cocoa Beach, Florida. The first 4 hours of the trip were going great until we ran out of gas. No one had paid any attention to it because of all the excitement. So we all had to wait in the car while my Dad went to get gas, luckily there was a station only 2 miles away and we were ready to go in about an hour. We’re getting closer and closer only 2 hours away from our destination and my brother peed his pants in his sleep. That caused a big commotion. We had to stop at a Walmart to clean it up and so he could change. You would think we would be able to make it two more hours until we got there but no. Of course something else had to come up. The traffic was so bad we sat in it for 3 hours. “There is no way this could take any longer” my dad said. The whole trip ended up taking us 18 hours.

We finally made it to our hotel and we all went to bed because we knew the day ahead would be filled with more excitement. We all woke up at the crack of dawn and went straight to the beach because our hotel was on the beach. We slapped on our sunscreen and played and had fun for hours. We noticed a lot of other families had wave boards which are smaller and lighter surfboards. We all decided that night when we went out for dinner we would all stop at the famous Ron Jon surf shop to get some because why not!

The next day we went out onto the beach again to hang out and try out our wave boards. We were all catching on and learning how to ride them and then someone saw a shark! There was no lifeguard where we were so everyone still listened and paid attention not to get back in. We were making sandcastles while waiting for it to be safe and didn’t remember to re-apply our sunscreen. Eventually it was getting late so we went back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. After our showers we all realized our mistake…we were so sunburned! It hurt to put our clothes on and everything. We made the best out of it slabbed on some aloe-Vera and still went out.

 The next morning was the morning to go to SeaWorld. Even with our painful sun burns we suffered through it because the excitement couldn’t hold us back from going to see the famous Shamu. We went on all the rides and saw all of the animals until it was time for the Shamu show. It was so packed full we had to sit far up, but we could still the killer-whale but couldn’t get splashed by all of the tricks. You hear the announcer “INTRODUCING SHAMU THE KILLER WHALE!” The show was so much fun and we all forgot about our sunburns until my brother threw up…we all had sun poisoning.

Our last three days in Florida we all spent in our hotel room throwing up in agony. We never got to go to Disneyworld and suffered the last couple days hoping we would get better. We all got worse. My brother put aloe vera on his back to make it feel better and only laid a bed sheet over himself hoping it wouldn’t irritate the burn but the sheet stuck to his back on to aloe and when we had to peel it off, it took a layer of the skin with it. We were done  with Florida. On the bright side, the trip back didn’t have any complications except for the combination of car-sickness and sun poisoning. We all decided that vacations weren’t all that great after all but we never forget to put our sunscreen on anymore and neither should you!