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Mom Spends Summer in Sanitarium
By Beth Bradley Walter
When most people think of family vacations, they think of amusement parks, fairs, zoos or a camping trip – complete with poison ivy and mosquitoes. I have taken my kids on many traditional vacations in the past, but that was before they became teenagers.
I have no idea how I will ever compete with last summer's family vacation. It was a teenager's dream come true. I survived escorting my 16- and 14-year-old sons and two of their friends to Metallica's Summer Sanitarium concert in Minneapolis.
It all started when my oldest son, Dylan, and some of his friends put their heads together to determine who had a parent crazy enough to play chaperone at such an event. For some reason, my name came up immediately, and the arm-twisting began. For awhile, the plan appeared to die down as they ran into some road blocks getting commitments for tickets and lining up a second adult driver so all their friends could attend. Good, I thought. I'm off the hook this time.
About a month later, the phone rang, and Dylan's friend's dad asked me if I had, in fact, considered taking a carload of kids to the concert. I hemmed and hawed and said, "Well, yes, I guess so – if we can get it all lined up in time." He said no problem and played travel agent, arranging tickets and a hotel room by later that day. He then asked me if I realized there were several bands performing, not just Metallica. I said, "Oh, well, that's OK. I'll deal with it; not a problem."
I got off the phone and called downstairs to my boys to ask them exactly who else was playing and realized I was in for several hours of not just rock music, but some serious heavy metal. It was too late to back out, so I decided to bring earplugs and try to be a go