The enjoyment of a vacation, it has been said, begins with the planning. That was pretty much where ours ended.

My mother would spend weeks stocking the travel trailer with a good supply of potted meat, Spam, Vienna sausages and shoestring potatoes. My sister Marla and I spent days assembling our vacation wardrobes and planning out different strategies for ditching our two younger sisters.

We were so full of hope.

Our first family vacation was to the newly-opened Six Flags Over Texas — the Disneyland of the Lone Star State.

We got to the RV park late that evening. Lights from the park glowed in the distance. We could see the soaring orange tower of the parachute drop. In a few hours, we'd be on top of that tower, ready to be scared out of our wits!

Or so we thought.

Mother woke us up in the middle of the night with the news that Daddy was in severe pain, most likely from a kidney stone, and that we had to go back home. As in, right then.

We spent the next week eating Spam and potted meat sandwiches, and then our vacation was over.

Our next attempt at family fun was a trip to Galveston. I was a senior in high school, and this was to be a trip of several "firsts." First time to see the ocean, first time to stay in a hotel, and the first time not to have to eat Spam and Vienna sausages for seven days straight.

We had reservations at a historic hotel, which looked like a palace in the brochures. Only as it turned out, we weren't booked into the hotel. We had been assigned a room in the "cabana," which turned out to be a squatty building that crouched to the side of the hotel.

OK, it was ugly and musty-smelling, but it was right across the street from the ocean. But was that the ocean? I was sure the ocean was supposed to be blue. Or green or blue-green. This water was gray, as was the sand. And where were the palm trees?

Apparently I had mistaken Galveston for Tahiti.

It was a sight for sore eyes, though, after the trip we'd had. Six people crammed into a Crown Victoria for nearly six straight hours wasn't exactly a pleasure cruise. Daddy never wanted to stop, not even for gas. The gas was going to be cheaper, he said, just a little further down the road.

Only it wasn't. Not only were there no places with cheap gas, there weren't no places with gas, period. We were in the middle of extreme nowhere.

Daddy switches off the air-conditioner. He slows down to 20 miles an hour. We pray.

And praise be! A gas station appears. Which Daddy drives right past, because 32 cents a gallon was too expensive.

We coasted into a third station, and stopped at the pump, but the vacation continued to go downhill.

My mother, convinced that Galveston was full of kidnappers, insisted that we all go everywhere together — to the souvenir shop, to the pool, to the beach. Marla and I figured Daddy would be too busy watching out for our two little sisters to pay much attention to us. I mean, Marla and I were in high school, for Pete's sake.

We figured wrong. He sat right next to us, smoking cigarette after cigarette, looking like a hit man on holiday.

Some cute guys were out in the water, laughing and waving to us. Marla and I pretended not to notice, hoping they wouldn't attract Daddy's attention. We knew he'd never let us go back to the beach without the family horde if he thought we were in danger of being assaulted by a wink and a wave.

It didn't work.

"Did you see those boys waving to you?" he said, when we suggested a trip to the beach without him. "I wanted to go over there and plant them in the mud."

Marla and I decided there was no point in going back to the beach as long as Ivan the Terrible was tagging along.

And then I broke out into a rash from head to toe, and couldn't leave the room. So I spent the rest of the week sitting in a musty hotel room, watching "Dark Shadows" and eating pimiento cheese sandwiches.

Could have been worse. Could have been potted meat.

Pimiento Cheese

8 ounces grated extra-sharp Cheddar cheese

8 ounces grated medium Cheddar cheese

1 4-ounce jar diced pimientoes

1 Tbsp. finely chopped red onion

1 tsp. sugar

1/3 c. mayonnaise

Combine cheese, pimientoes and onion. Stir in mayonnaise and sugar.

Karla DeLuca is editor and publisher of The Daily Sentinel.