Thanks to the aforementioned shenanigans in a certain Milwaukee parking garage, my family and I got to the boat in time to see 139 sweaty people shifting in their seats, getting ready for the 1 p.m. tour. Many of those people were short and young. Children, I suppose. They were also sweaty. And unruly. And altogether terrifying.

Because we are a family of chickens, we fled.

To the mall.

We are not very bright chickens.

We entered the mall and were immediately confused. The directory showed three separate levels of shopping, but none of them were connected. The food court was shown as up and off to the left. And that is where we headed.

Strangely, that took us across a bridge toward a building labeled "Chase Tower Parking."No, dear Lord, not that place again. Please.

We looked at another directory, but that didn't even show a food court on it. Had we been imagining things? Confused, we staggered aimlessly until we wound up in front of the security office. Reeking of stupidtouristosis, we timidly asked for directions. The jolly lady in the security office pointed out the way with as much cheer as the action would allow. The food court had been to the right of the entrance, not the left.

And actually, the food court was across yet another enclosed bridge. It was accessible via two very tall escalators, the whole place almost hidden from view. We had now been in the mall for almost an hour looking for what was apparently a very elite dining establishment. I was beginning to worry that the rules of a secret clubhouse might apply and that we would be denied access because we didn't know the handshake OR the password.

As we stood dejectedly on the escalator, I muttered once again, "I bet this would be funny if we were drunk." My mother nodded.

The image at the top of this entry shows the most exciting part of the food court — an oddly celebratory decoration hanging from the ceiling. My brother decided it was a party favor. I thought it looked like the bastard child of an ice cream cone and a fiber-optic tchotchke. My dad stole the show, however, when he boldly declared it was a particle cannon.

The second image is a closer look at what you might have seen behind the particle cannon and what, in fact, was directly above my head the entire time I was eating lunch — a lot of bird poop. One hour of searching and four hours of secret handshakes for a stellar view of bird poop.

Just as we were getting ready to rain down curses on Milwaukee and forget the whole vacation, we turned the corner to see this:

I realized then that I was enjoying this weird little weekend getaway, quirks and all. Nobody likes to hear about things going right all the time anyway. But then I bought some ice cream and made another crack about being drunk, and we got the hell out of that mall.

The drive into Milwaukee was strange. The road we were supposed to take was closed for construction right outside the city. The detour road also wound up being closed. Then the detour ramp from there was closed. We even saw a sign saying that a sidewalk was closed. (Note to Wisconsin: This was not very welcoming. We were sad that you hated us so much.)

We planned to start our trip with a boat tour of Lake Michigan. Since we couldn't check in to the hotel for several hours, we needed to park public parking for our van.

And that's how we came to experience the scariest little parking garage I have ever seen. Low ceilings. Weird ramps. Warning signs everywhere. (Again, not very welcoming, Wisconsin.) My whole family was screeching and poking our heads out the windows, placing bets as to whether or not we'd be leaving Milwaukee with the roof of our van intact. In the end, we were a confused and exhausted bunch, trading nervous laughs with the other van full of brave souls who had followed us into the parking garage.

But once we got out of the car, things did not get any better. The elevators were out of service. We passed this poor confused doorway in the stairwell that thought it was a bridge and/or an elevator. It was neither. Oh, and the stairs didn't even take us to the street level. We had to scurry down a car ramp to get out. At this point, I turned to my family and said, "Man, I bet this would be funnier if we were drunk." If only I had known...

My parents used to let me pick out two activity books that they would buy for me before any major road trip. I usually picked a logic puzzle book and a coloring book. One time, I picked out a pair of "things to do in the car" books for kids, which turned out to be too easy and too boring. However, I did glean a few good family car games, one of which my brother and I still play to this day.

Here's how it works. One person starts by reading a word from any object outside the car. Usually, this is a billboard. "Money!" The next person has to find a word that starts with the last letter of the first word. "Yamaha!" "Anyone!" "Exit!" "Turn!"

This might sound extremely easy, but finding Yamaha took me almost fifteen minutes. (Note: to keep the game moving, you are not allowed to pass up a word in hopes of finding a better one.) Of course, we live in Chicago, so any road trip we take requires traversing through a chunk of the Midwest. I don't know if you've ever driven through the Midwest, but it's mostly flat and corn and trees and some more corn. There isn't even that much other traffic, so you shouldn't hold your breath waiting for a Yukon to drive by.

My least favorite letter to get stuck with from this trip? 'K.' My brother would look at billboards like the ones pictured above and choose "network" instead of "now." And I would sigh and watch all those pretty Wisconsin license plates fly by and wish that he was slightly less smart.

I tried this game indoors once when my friends and I were stuck at an airport for countless hours, waiting for someone's plane to arrive. It was difficult and fun for a while . . . until we found three words that looped (e.g. turn, nice, exit) and got too lazy to do anything but repeat them.

Anyway, I dare you to try this with a sibling or a friend on your next road trip. It's guaranteed to stave off boredom for at least five minutes. You'll have to come up with your own games after that.