My family and I were taking a vacation to Colorado. We were all in the van driving what felt like northwest. Up ahead, on the northeast side of the road, were some pointy reddish rock formations, sort of like huge stalagmites or stalactites, whichever ones are on the ground. On top of one of them was a moderately sized Hardees restaurant with a long winding driveway leading up to it. As we followed the curve in the highway to the west, we came upon a small town.
All of the buildings in this small town, at least along the main road, were tall and narrow with no space in between. Instantly I commented to my mom that it reminded me of England. The buildings were probably only wide enough to have one average-sized room across but were easily four to five stories tall. They were all stone-faced to give an impression of being very old. On most of them, there were an additional three floors in the middle of construction on top of those initial four or five. These extra levels looked like they had been there for quite a while though, so either progress was very slow or work had been abandoned a while back.
I began saying how I never knew such a town existed in Nebraska. It was so much like a typical England street that I was instantly in love. I told my parents that I would have to move there when I got a real job, because not only did it have the charm of an English town, but it had the low cost of living of an American town. Plus it was up in the non-existant Nebraska mountains, with plenty of great views and waterfalls in the surrounding area. My mom said that it was great that I liked it so much, but she was just eager to get on the ferry to take us to Colorado. She really wanted to get skiing.
We parked and went into our ferry terminal, which was a semi-indoor mall area or arcade, and did some last-minute shopping at the little shops before our ferry departed. Also at our terminal were a mens and womens basketball teams. Their coach asked my dad if he could take a picture of the two teams with the coach. I held the film while my dad shot the photos.
Somewhere along the way, my dad, Monica (sister), and I were all put to work making mix tapes of our favourite songs. We were planning on doing this anyway for the journey, but here we were being told to do it. When my dad finished his, he took it up to the short fat guy in the suit behind the counter (which was just a card table with a blanket over it). The man said "I told you I'd give you 75 cents...how much of that do you think you deserve?" My dad said 75 cents, so he got 75 cents. Monica went up next and the same thing happened. When it was my turn, I told him that I only wanted 50 cents, because "cents" were useless in Colorado and I just wanted enough money to buy a coke before we left. Plus I was getting to keep the tape, so it's not like I really deserved any payment. He smiled, gave me two quarters and three pennies, and said "Don't say a Jewish man never gave you anything."