The only family vacations we took when I was a kid were to church camp and a week long water skiing safari on Lake of the Ozarks (the Redneck Rivera). My parents' friends had an inboard/outboard open bow boat with a small block Chevy sitting in the back.
The usual MO was to book a couple of 2 BR suites in an old-school "ski resort" (think: trailer park) to house 6 or 8 families. We all packed everything we might eat for the week, and rolled 5-1/2 hrs down in a large American sedan (an Olds Delta 88, in our case), back seat floorboards piled high with food and whatnot.
People slept everywhere. I slept in a sleeping bag on the floor of a screened in porch for at least 5 years running. Nobody complained.
Depending on the resort, there was generally a smallish pool, a shuffleboard court, some pinball machines, a fish house, and a floating dock big enough for 20 boats.
We skied from sunup (5:00 AM +/-) to sunset (8:30- 9:00 PM). The boat came in long enough to gas up and load and unload people. There were always 8 people or more in the boat and at least 2 behind it.
The family with the boat were climbing tree trimmers from St. Louis, and were certifiably insane. With maybe 2% body fat on any one of them - they were coiled like springs, adrenaline running in rivers through their veiny limbs, always looking for a newer, crazier way to release their stored energy. After dark we would go go-carting until we were thrown out, then head back to play board games until the small hours of the night. We ate chips and hamburgers on our feet, running to meet the boat on the dock. Refueling looked like a NASCAR pit-stop, one guy checking the oil, one guy with the fuel nozzle stuck in the tank, one guy with a twenty dollar bill to pay the attendant.
We ran like this for 6 solid days until we pulled the boat out at the last possible moment on the last day, and all drove home (3 to 6 hours, depending) in wet swimming suits and sunglasses.
I learned to ski there. There was a two-strikes rule for kids and newbies - you either got up in two tries, or you went back in the boat. Nobody suffered fools kindly. We would occasionally tube, but only as a full-contact sport, with the boat making at least 3 tight circles at full throttle around the tube, before pulling out hard, taking the slack out of the rope and launching the tube at least 15 ft vertically off the wake. Those that hung on came back across that same wake in an effort to be thrown. 5 minutes in the tube was a full body workout and trip to the chiropractor - every joint was stretched and popped. It was a right of passage.
We got people up on 200+ ft long ropes, boat almost out of sight when the skier yelled "hit it". The boat would go by the dock, and a few seconds later, the skier would go by looking for all the world like he was self-propelled. We once got 20 people up behind the boat at the same time. I watched guys ski straight into each other, watched a man ski directly into a floating dock when he misjudged how much speed he had trying to glide in without getting wet. One guy skied off the dock in a 3-piece suit, just to make people wonder.
I was one of the "top men" on a two-high, 5-man pyramid. We had no top (3rd) level to top it off, but when one of the tree-trimmer's daughters was a few years older she climbed up to complete a full 3-level pyramid.
I'm told it was glorious, but I wasn't there to see it. The summer I was 15 was the last time I was there. By the next summer, Mom finally talked Dad into a different (saner, more boring) vacation, and I got a job to buy a car.
I've skied since, but it was never the same. Too tame. Too civilized. Too many rules. Not enough danger by half.
I doubt I could even get up on 2 right now, and I don't know that I'd enjoy it if I did.
But once upon a time, I was the high man on a ski pyramid.
or if you just want a driver.
