My dad went to Disney World when I was seven years old. For the rest of his life, every time I would bring it up, he would argue with me that he only went to Epcot – like that was supposed to dull the sting of him going without me or bringing me back a plastic orange juice sipper souvenir in lieu of a set of mouse ears.

Four years after Dad “only went to Epcot,” my parents told me that we were going on vacation. This was huge since our family had never taken a vacation. Dad worked in road construction, so the summer months were when work was good for him, and most years, the winter months saw him unemployed and left my parents barely making it from one month to the next.

It was 1992. I was 11 years old and in sixth grade. Our vacation was scheduled for February, so my mom arranged for me to take a week off from school. We were going to Atlanta to visit my dad’s sister, then on to Disney World for a few days. To this day, I cannot figure out why we took this trip. My dad hated to drive. My mom STILL refuses to drive outside of a two-family-cemetery radius from her house, but I wasn’t worried about their motivations. I, who had never really been outside of the shadow of our trailer, was going to Disney. I was going to see The Mouse and come back with that set of ears that my heart had spent years yearning for. I was going to Disney, by God.

The five of us – My mom, dad, sister, grandmother, and me – loaded up in my grandmother’s 1985 Buick LeSabre. If my math is correct, the average age in that hunk of American steel was 37-ish years old. Granny’s Buick was the height of luxury for its time, or any time, for that matter. The exterior was white, and it had burgundy, crushed velvet interior. It was the type of car that, if you took a sharp curve on a narrow road too quickly, you’d find your front bumper in a ditch while your back bumper hung over the hill on the opposite side of the road. The front seat could serve as a bench seat, if you wanted to flip the armrests back. The driver’s and passenger’s seats had pockets on the back where Granny would stash her road atlas and Kleenex. If you dug down to the bottom of those pockets, you could usually find at least half of a roll of wintergreen Certs. The car had all of the most modern technology – cruise control, power windows and door locks, and a cassette player. We loaded our suitcases in the trunk, stashed the “adult” road cooler in the front seat at Mom’s feet, and Granny, my sister, and I settled into the backseat. I stashed my road cooler at my feet and tucked extra batteries for my Walkman safely into the pocket on the back of the passenger’s seat.

We stopped for our first road meal at a Waffle House somewhere between Clintwood, Virginia and Atlanta. We stopped at a different Waffle House for our second road meal before we reached the ATL. My memories of our time in Atlanta are sparse – I was laser-focused on the Disney prize. I do remember seeing the Knoxville Sunsphere for the first time. I also saw my first city skyline. We went to Stone Mountain and took a cable car to the top. We went shopping at Marshall’s. I remember those nights in Atlanta being the first time I ever heard traffic at bedtime.

The morning we were supposed to depart Atlanta and head for Disney was a blessed and glorious day, indeed. I woke up full of hope and optimism. Would I get to ride Space Mountain? Could we go to Animal Kingdom? I had already decided that I would spend my time in the car that day making a list of all the things I wanted to see and do, then prioritizing that list to make sure I got the most fun in that I possibly could.

“Your dad decided that Orlando is too far away. We’re going to Myrtle Beach instead,” Mom told me when I made it upstairs. What? Had Orlando moved since we left Clintwood? It wasn’t too far away from Atlanta when we loaded up in the car and left. Did Rand McNally lie?

I cried a lot because there wasn’t much else I could do. I was surly the entire trip from Atlanta to Myrtle Beach. We stopped at a couple more Waffle Houses. We got lost and drove 30-some miles out of our way, which meant Dad was surly, too. I contend that us getting lost was because the adults burned through the contents of their road cooler too quickly (and they probably didn’t eat enough at either Waffle House). Finally, we made it to beautiful Myrtle Beach. The temps on that early February day were in the low 50s.

To soothe my disappointment, my sister took me shopping at the Gay Dolphin. I got disappearing ink and plastic vomit – neither could fill the void that not getting mouse ears had left in my life. Mom paid without complaining. We got dressed up and ate dinner at some Calabash place because that’s what you do when you’re in Myrtle Beach in February. Our last day there, the weather was nice enough to spend the day on the beach. “Nice enough” meant that it was sunny and not too cold as long as I wore a sweatshirt and long pants. I cruised up and down the shoreline on a rented recumbent tricycle and mourned the Disney trip that never happened.

We hit the road for home and stopped at a new Waffle House for our first road meal on the return trip. I was still surly, but at least we’d be home before bedtime. Late that afternoon, it was time for lunch/supper, and Dad wheeled the Buick into yet another Waffle House parking lot. In my mind, the trip had fallen apart when we headed east out of Atlanta instead of south, but in reality, the last Waffle House stop is what blasted our family vacation into bits of smothered, covered shrapnel.

I wanted McDonald’s. I had asked for McDonald’s. I was sick of Waffle House. My dreams of Disney had gone down in flames. I just wanted to get home. I wasn’t really that hungry anyway. So 11-year-old me decided that I would exercise my right to protest peacefully by just not going in to the Waffle House. I’d hang out in the car and read a Babysitters Club book or listen to my Vanilla Ice tape on my Walkman. It seemed like a reasonable enough plan.

Except I wasn’t the only one who was over our travels. My dad, who was tired of driving, tired of being in a car with four women, and tired of me pouting about not getting my way, was not having any of my parking-lot Gandhi antics. He burst out of those Waffle House doors, and I jumped out of the car to meet him. And right there in that Waffle House parking lot, we had our first of many showdowns of will. Eventually, I relented because that’s what you do when you’re 11. The rest of the trip home was quiet and tense.

Memory is a tricky, subjective thing. The same trip left very different impressions on me and my sister. I remember that trip as the first time I felt disappointed because someone changed his or her mind, and I remember the first time I ever saw the ocean, even if it was the grey Atlantic in the dead of winter. My sister, who was almost 26 years old at the time, remembers that trip as the first time she ever heard our dad say the F-word.