HELL ON WHEELS
The Seger family of Sugarcreek Township, Ohio, are intrepid campers. They are diehard campers. They are not, however, happy campers.
The Segers—Judy, 47, Don, 45, and their four children, ages 6 to 13—might have taken the hint in 1995, when they drove to Cape Hatteras, N.C., in the family van and arrived just in time for Hurricane Felix. They fled, and, when all four kids came down with the flu, decided to call it a trip and go home. Things would go better next year, they figured.
For their 1996 trip to Cape Hatteras, the Segers bought themselves a new pop-up Jayco camper. After a three-day delay because the dealer delivered the wrong model, they headed for the expressway on June 25. Seven miles from home, tooling down a narrow country lane with ditches on each side, they came face to face with a tractor. No problem. "It was a flat, straight road and visibility was perfect," says Don, an engineering supervisor. The tractor squeezed by without a hitch, but the 18-foot-wide grain planter it was pulling sheared off the top of the camper and opened it up like a sardine can. "[It] raked right through the cabinets inside," says Don. Cushions, cereal boxes, fishing gear—everything went flying over the road.
It took the Segers two trips to cart their stuff home. "We looked like the Beverly Hillbillies," says son Andy, 13. A day and a half later, thanks to their insurance agent, they were off again in their van, pulling another new camper. "The kids needed to go somewhere," says Judy. "After what happened last year, we couldn't say no."
This time they tried another road. It didn't matter. After two days, the van broke down because of an oil leak. Don had to hitchhike five miles to a phone to arrange for a tow. At 8 that night the family made an unusual entrance to a campground near Charlottesville, Va., Don riding up front with the tow truck driver, Judy and the kids in the van on a flatbed behind.
It took until Sunday, five days after their original departure, before the Segers could fine a new engine and have it installed. That night they arrived at Cape Hatteras and had nearly two days of fun in the sun. Then, on Tuesday, as Judy and Andy headed for a supermarket, the van just stopped; the alternator had failed. "At least this time," says Judy, who admits that the family finally packed up and fled home two days early, "we were at the beach."
BITTEN BY THE TRAVEL BUG
When Zain Mackey returned to Latin America last January, she barely noticed the earthquake in Mexico. After all, what was a little seismic rocking compared to the horror of her last trip south of the border in 1972?
Traveling with her big sister Mary, Zain, 17 at the time, was on her first visit to the Central American jungle. After two weeks of touring, the pair took a hot, crowded bus to Tikal National Park, about 40 miles northeast of San Benito, Guatemala. They checked into the nicest hotel—one with whitewashed walls, tiled floors and a swimming pool—and fell into a deep sleep. It didn't last long.
Suddenly Zain was awakened by Mary's screams. Unable to turn on the lights because the hotel generator shut down at midnight, Zain grabbed a flashlight and aimed it at her sister. "I was wearing a thick dress of ants," says Mary, now a professor of English at California State University, Sacramento, "that were slowly eating me."
The ants were army ants, and Mary was in the path of their march. "Only the first ones had gotten to my bed," she says. Most were still swarming down the walls in a column five feet wide and several inches thick. Mary ripped off her ant-coated nightgown while Zain grabbed a towel and began swatting the remaining insects off her sister. Throwing on shorts and shirts, the sisters ran out of their ground-floor room and into the lobby, where a few guests were playing guitars and singing in the candlelight, blissfully unaware of the ants. "We were absolutely babbling with fear," says Zain.
Within minutes, all 15 guests had gathered in the reception area, huddling on sofas, watching the ants march through. Overhead they could hear a soft fluttering sound from the hotel's thatched roof as the invasion moved upward. All 15 screamed in unison when a fist-size brown scorpion, trying to escape the ants, fell to the floor. "They started falling like apples," says Mary. "It was raining scorpions." No sooner did the scorpions hit the ground than the ants devoured them.
Someone suggested umbrellas, and for hours the guests huddled beneath them, afraid to leave the hotel. The Tikal National Park is a jungle, home to poisonous snakes, pumas and other terrors. Finally the sisters fell asleep, watched over by a young American who held an umbrella over them. "By the time we woke up," says Mary, "he was gone and the ants were gone." They weren't the only departures. Local villagers consider the occasional ant march a free pest-control service. After the invasion, there wasn't a snake, rat or bug left in the hotel.
CRUISIN' FOR A BRUISIN'
When Bob and Tina Wright, both police officers in Tampa, take a break, they really want to get away from it all. So two summers ago, on June 17, 1995, the Wrights and their daughter Latia, 12, set off on a seven-day Caribbean cruise on the Carnival Cruise Line's ship Celebration. "I told Bob, 'I'm going to enjoy this,' " says Tina, who commands the city's uniformed patrol division.
The first day out, Bob had just left Tina and Latia at the ship's pool when he smelled smoke. "I told a steward," he recalls. "He said, 'No problem. It's just a small fire.' But he looked panicky." In fact the crew quickly extinguished the fire in the engine room, but the damage had been done. "The problem," says Carnival spokesman Tim Gallagher, "was that it was a very key electrical panel. We were unable to restart the engines or run generators."
For two days the Wrights and 1,756 other passengers drifted off the Bahamas, 370 miles southeast of Miami, before Carnival could send another ship to pick them up. There were no showers, lights, air-conditioning or ice, and the toilets didn't flush. By Monday, with the food supply running low, tempers began to run high. Fights broke out, and the Wrights felt as if they were back on the streets. "It was like, 'All for me. I'm going to get mine,' " says Tina.
When, on June 20, the replacement ship Ecstasy arrived, it took eight hours to ferry the passengers and luggage through the quarter mile of rough seas between the vessels. The Wrights admit it wasn't much of a vacation, but they did learn that the laws of the sea aren't much different from those on land. "When people start to panic, their behavior changes," says Bob. Adds Tina: "That thing about women and children first? Forget it."
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
