October 19, vacation day. My parents, my sister and I are going to take a road trip to California. I ran upstairs to pack. We would go to the beach, the zoo, and many other places there. It sounded like a cool vacation. When I got upstairs, I took the sharp left turn that delivers me into my room. I quickly unzipped my bag, and started stuffing in clothes, shoes, my phone, some sunscreen…

I hustled downstairs with my considerably heavy duffle bag, and walked over to the minivan. Nobody had packed anything in yet, so I would be the first one. I took my phone out so it wouldn't be damaged when other bags were piled onto it. I got in the back seat, and played games on my phone. After about 10 minutes, the rest of the family emerged from the door. Dad locked up the house, and the three of them loaded up their bags.

We were off on our journey at two o’clock. I noticed a strange amount of small cracks in the road that hadn't been there before.Of course, as with all road trips, we had to stop at Starbucks. My parents like the caffeine when they drive, and I just like coffee. I got a decaf frappuccino, and my parents both got Espressos. I spent most of the car ride looking out of the window or playing games on my phone. There really wasn’t that much communication between us in the car. That was fine, I was content with my window and my phone.

I started noticing many more cracks in the road. It was unheard of. There was a crack at least every half inch. Definitely an abnormal sight. We continued our journey, and began to approach the wind farm. This is always my favorite part of a ride to California. The wind farm consists of hundreds of colossal, electrical windmills, all scattered about the series of a few miles. As we passed through, I saw even more cracks. Suddenly, my dad screamed at the top of his lungs, scaring me, my sister, and especially my mom, who was passively reading a magazine.

I looked forward, and saw a giant, expanding, 12 foot long ravine in the road. Or was it a crack? I could not see the bottom from where we were. My dad slammed the breaks, setting off a sequence of honking cars behind us. We stared in disbelief as the giant crack grew, in the middle of the wind farm. I looked out my window and saw wind mills falling into the mysterious crack.

My dad could not back up, nor move to the side. The surrounding lanes were packed with cars. Our only hope was if every single other car in our lane backed up. We watched as the ravine grew larger, now becoming about 6 feet away from us. I could still not see the bottom. Our front tire began to slip down the edge… The whole car began to tilt. Holding the brakes didn’t seem to do much. Finally, the crack grew so large that our minivan fell in. We plummeted down, and all I could see was darkness.

I flipped out of bed, landing on the floor and hitting my head on the table next to me. My heart was pounding. I was terrified. I got back in bed and breathed in and out, slowly. I fell back asleep. Luckily, I didn't fall back into the crack.