With the big holiday celebration tomorrow, I got to thinking about all the family trips I’ve been on, and the following thought came to me:
I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather…
… not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.
Please feel free to share your stories of holidays with the family, or exploding Goblin Engineering projects here.
So, not long ago, we decided to go for a quick trip down to the Echo Isles. We piled onto the X-52 and took the portal from Brill to Orgrimmar, then a high flight over Durotar until we were “feet-wet” just north of The Echo Isles. At that point, my mother, who was piloting, decided we should all be freshly bathed before we saw our enemies-turned-allies, the Darkspear Trolls.
She hit the button and all of us started tumbling through the air. Mom’s a monk so she just activated Zen Flight while the rest of us drifted down. I started Gliding as soon as the rocket poofed, and my stepsister Walela likewise shifted to Flight Form, but my little sister Rebecca had to wait until she could Leap to the closest dry land. She hates getting her hair wet.
When we all gathered at the beach, there was a crowd already present, cheering on Trolls that were chugging some kind of beverage, then running north towards Durotar. Apparently we’d stumbled (or got dropped from a moving aircraft without notice) into a Darkspear celebration event. We didn’t know what they were celebrating, but someone pulled out a Brewfest Keg and we all soon forgot about silly things like “why”, “where” or even “who”.
I woke up the next morning on the outskirts of Shattrath with a foul taste in my mouth and chunky stuff in my hair. I decided to skip our family gathering for the Midsummer Fireworks Finale.
Sadly, none of my Goblin Engineering exploits got to the explosion part, they either malfunctioned and fell apart, or in one case, were sucked into a wormhole and disappeared.
Our last family outing started in Thunder Bluff, for Noblegarden. We’d stuffed ourselves full of chocolates, and I suggested a walk up to Stonetalon Pass to burn off the excess sugar.
It had been years since I’d last been up there, so I was pleasantly surprised to see that the critters were still engaged in the endless battle: Mice, Prairie Dogs, and Rabbits transforming into larger, armed & armored versions of themselves, parcticing their own form of Warcraft in an endless loop.
It really made my heart (or the empty cavity where I used to have one) warm and fuzzy to see these beautiful traditions persisting.
My grandmother, after being resurrected by Sylvanas’ goons, took up a career as a Hunter, but she loved practical jokes. She and my grandfather were flying around Westen Plaguelands, and she spotted Putridius. She was in Obsidian Nightwing form, and faked a heart attack on landing, Feigning her own Death. My grandfather was so distraught that he couldn’t fight back, and easily succumbed to the undead onslaught.
When the coast was clear, Gramma got up and flew over to pick up Grampa from the graveyard, where he was arguing with the Spirit Healer, laughing all the way.