My grandparents had decided to take us on vacation with them. We had enjoyed ourselves in the Canadian Rockies skiing and doing all sorts of other winter activities. Our grandparents were so much fun to vacation with. They let us do things our parents didn't (like hot chocolate WITH whip cream at BREAKFAST) and really spoiled us rotten. But, after a few days with both Hemmy and myself, my grandparents must have needed a break.
They sent us on a 4-hour glacier tour.
That's right, they put little Rikki and little Hemmy on a full-on bus tour, with the utmost trust that the tour guide would safely return us to them at the end of the day.
We felt a combination of elation from being without any supervision, and utter fear...from being without any supervision.
The tour started with a bus ride which was pretty uneventful. Although my memory about the bus ride is a little foggy, I am sure that Hemmy checked out the bathroom. Wherever we went he made sure he found time to check out the commode. The kid always had to pee.
Once we had gotten to the base of the glacier, the tour guide informed us that this was as far as the bus could take us, and we were to get off the bus and wait for our next mode of transportation.
What we got to ride on next was some sort of tank/snowmobile/bus hybrid. It was huge.
Hemmy's eye's popped out of his head and I could tell he thought we were getting to ride on top of a transformer. I had to pull on his shirt to prevent him from cutting to the front of the line.
Our nice tour guide came up and asked us if either of us had to use the bathroom. After assuring her that we didn't, we got to climb aboard the...beast.
I have to say that poor Hemmy's little heart was crushed once the beast started moving. I think in his 8 year old brain, he was thinking that is was going to fly up the glacier. Looking back, we could have strapped on a pair of golf spikes and made it up before the beast did. It was SO slow.
After a 1/2 hour ride that took us up the glacier (I am sure it was more than this, but it felt like we had only travelled 50 ft) we were finally at the point where we could get off and walk on the glacier. The last thing the tour guide said on the megaphone before the beast cleared out was "Ladies and gentleman, feel free to drink directly from the glacial streams, as it is the purest water in the world".
Hemmy and I took off like rockets, we were drinking the water, jumping across streams, basically blowing off the steam that came with being cooped up in a bus/beast for an hour.
After about 15 minutes, Hemmy's eyes started to get real big. He started to do his notorious I-have-to-pee-dance.
We were the furthest people up on the glacier (which looking back, shame on the tour guide, some babysitter she proved to be) when Hemmy said he couldn't take it anymore.
The kid, unzipped and let a rip.
I remember him laughing for two reasons. One, he thought it was funny that his pee made steam as it hit the glacier. And two, he couldn't believe that he was peeing on the very same glacier that people were drinking from.
Nobody noticed a thing.
After making a pact not to tell, we sat with smug little grins the entire trip back to the welcoming arms of our grandparents.
1 comment:
OMG-that's hilarious! Did your parents ever find out that your gparents had done that? Wow.
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