The Worst Day Trip Ever in the History of the World*

The Husband doesn’t get weekends off very often and this weekend he had been scheduled to have Saturday off. So we decided to take advantage of it and do something we’d been talking about for a while: visiting the Battleship North Carolina in Wilmington. The timing was great because we had just seen an old episode of Ghost Hunters last week in which the team visited the Battleship North Carolina and found evidence of paranormal activity–including an apparition that their thermal camera picked up. We were really hoping to see or hear some ghostly evidence ourselves, so we headed out toward Wilmington, which is about an hour and a half drive.

Things started out great. Great weather–sunny and it was supposed to warm up to around 70 degrees in the afternoon. We stopped at McDonald’s on the way and ended up getting an extra pack of fries for free.

We really shouldn’t have taken that as a good sign.

We needed to get off Interstate 40 at exit 416A. Well, at mile 405 we suddenly heard this loud pop. We looked at each other. The Husband said, “What was that?” I shrugged. He decided to pull off the road and check things out to make sure everything was okay.

Passenger side rear tire was flat. Completely flat and almost completely off the rim. Neither of us had seen anything in the road, but when he pulled the tire off we could both easily see the huge puncture hole in it. Whatever it was that we had run over had fallen off though, so we don’t know what flattened the tire but it was round and a pretty good size.

Luckily, The Husband has a full size spare tire and not one of those tiny ones that lasts just long enough to get you to a tire shop. And since we were so close to Wilmington, we decided to just go ahead and see the battleship as planned.

Unfortunately, the bad luck only continued from there. I had checked the battleship’s website before we left to see if there were any events going on that day. The calendar showed nothing special planned for November 1. But once we got onto the road leading to the battleship, we started seeing a bunch of people on bikes, with numbers on their chests. “Is there a race going on?” I asked. Then the four lane highway had been reduced down to two lanes because the outer lane in each direction had been blocked off for the bicyclists and the runners–because as we got closer to the battleship we started to also see people running in the other direction, with numbers on their chests. And the traffic got congested. After waiting quite a bit longer than it probably normally would take to get across the bridge and over to the battleship entrance, we found the battleship parking lot is packed full of people. Because as it turned out, whatever that race was seemed to be originating from the battleship parking lot. So there were a ton of spectators, runners, and bikers everywhere.

We managed to find one of the last few parking spaces left, after carefully maneuvering through all the people and traffic cones everywhere, and paid the admittance fee to finally get inside to see the ship.

We may have made it onto the ship, but our bad day was far from over. The Husband and I managed to both hit our heads while exploring the ship. I hit the back of my head while climbing up one of the narrow stairs between decks and The Husband hit his forehead on a pipe hanging from the ceiling in one of the rooms. His was worse than mine. Mine feels pretty much all right now, but he has a mark across his forehead that still hurts. But don’t worry, I left with an injury that still hurts me too. While moving between floors again on one of the narrow stairs, I lost my footing and fell all the way down the stairs. As I was falling I had an image flash through my head of me heading face first toward the floor and breaking my neck. But thankfully, I managed to keep my grip on the rails, so I fell feet first. It was kind of like my feet were sliding down all of the steps all the way down. And somewhere along the way I managed to slam my right knee into the rail so now I have this huge bruise and just barely touching my knee hurts. I’m able to walk fine, it’s just that I can’t put pressure directly on my kneecap.

We managed to make it through the rest of the self guided tour with no problems. At the end, we stopped by the snack area to get some drinks and snacks. We decided to sit outside on the deck since it was so nice out and to try to look one last time to see if the alligators that live around there were laying out anywhere (they weren’t). While we were sitting at the table, The Husband moved his hand and hit his bottle of Pepsi–which then flew forward, showering me in Pepsi. All over the front of my new shirt. All over my lap and my new jeans. All over my digital camera which was hanging around my neck. Across my neck and face. In my hair. On my shoes. On my sweater which I had taken off and set on the table because it was so warm. And there were absolutely no napkins in the place and no paper towels in the bathroom. So I had to try to clean off as best as I could with toilet paper, water, and the hand dryer.

Then I tried to eat my last Peppermint Patty out of the pack I’d bought from the snack machine–and dropped it right on the ground. At that point, I just stomped my feet and laughed. It had been just one thing right after another ever since the flat tire and so what else could I do but laugh? We still had one more bit of misfortune though. After I cleaned up as best I could, we headed into the gift shop to find some souvenirs. The Husband picked up a little shell bracelet from a display and it was like the bracelet exploded. Bright pink shells went flying everywhere. We picked them all up and then bought the thing because we felt so bad, even though the girl at the counter told us we didn’t have to. But we bought it and I put it back together today and now I’m going to wear the thing just to remind me that when the Norrises go on a trip it’s like National Lampoon’s Vacation.

But still, we did enjoy seeing the battleship and it’s really cool that we have this piece of history nearby to explore. We just don’t plan on going back–or very likely anywhere else–any time soon. And much to our disappointment we did not see any ghosts at all! I probably scared them all away with all that noise I made falling down the stairs.

(*That doesn’t mean that I think going to the Battleship North Carolina is horrible. No, the battleship is AWESOME. It’s just that wherever The Husband and I go, bad luck seems to follow.)