Air Conditioned Bus Tours
Who doesn’t like vacations? Relaxing in whatever manner they prefer. Now the type of vacation a person takes, depends upon individual tastes and preferences. Most folks like to be wined-n-dined to the max, with every particular need being catered to. This includes favorite foods, participation in treasured activities, and being pampered as if they’ve secretly snuck into the 1/10 of 1% demographic.
A few eccentrics prefer to take vacations in a different manner, the trip falling into place spontaneously, and having to work a bit harder to achieve their vacation goals. Developing the ability to ignore travel inconveniences that’s not unlike a gym rat who refuses to believe their feet smell.
This is the type of vacation DARREN DALLAVALLE, likes to participate in. Being your quintessential backpack traveler, as opposed to being a luxury cocktail tourist. He’s just returned home to South-West Colorado from his latest adventure, and receives a call from his cousin on the left coast informing him that their uncle, JORGE DaSILVA, would like to take his nieces and nephews on a cruise.
Jorge has almost as much money as most corporate CEOs, and is good at saving as evidenced by the rumor that he may still have the first shilling from his newspaper route while growing up in Shanghai, China. Darren immediately becomes skeptical concerning the trip since this isn’t exactly his idea of an interesting adventure. Cousin RYAN, casually mentioning to Darren that he probably prefers adventures where the excitement can only come from doing things off-the-cuff. This includes street stall cuisine, park-bench sleeping accommodations, and having the barrel of an AR-15 pointed at your skull.
Initially, Darren refuses to participate in the cruise. He works at the Columbia, CO. library, and various friends and colleagues who give new meaning to the term, “mildly eccentric & off-the-wall, and sister, GRETCHEN, try to influence him. Gretchen and Darren’s unique family heritage is touched upon. This includes a father of northern Italian/Tyrolian descent, and their mother, who came from an urban Macanese background (Portuguese people living in China-Shanghai, Hong Kong, & Macau).
The manipulation to try and get Darren to participate in the cruise includes a stealth influence-scheme which eventually has him deciding to participate. Then, a monkey wrench gets thrown into the works when their uncle suffers a mild heart attack and the DaSilva niece/nephew cruise may not even happen. Fortunately, he recovers, and the river-cruise vacation occurs.
During the cruise, more off-the-wall characters are introduced. All of them influence Darren in some strange way, and this colors his impressions.
In the end, Jorge tells Darren that he wishes he could’ve done these rough-n-tumble, back-pack, vacations his nephew takes when he was younger. Darren comes to the conformist conclusion that a person’s financial situation, and chronological age at that particular point in their lives influences the type of vacation they take. Despite having just participated in a fancy cruise, Darren still decides he wants to do the backpack vacation thing right up until the day he’s too old. Which will force him to do the Barca-lounger thing. This involves eating pre-chewed meals through a straw.