A break from school means waves crashing up against the sand as the sun burns bright and troubles melt away like the ice cubes in a fresh cup of juice. It is the perfect picture of serenity, freedom, and peace, which makes it all the easier to be interrupted by the ups and downs of life. 

“The craziest thing that has ever happened to me was when I was at the beach with my family, and there was a shark in the water. I got so scared, and it was so crazy that everyone at the resort talked about it for the rest of the trip,” sophomore Juliana Stratton said.  

Usually, bad vacation stories involve some sort of ruin and pain, but sometimes bizarre memories take the cake. 

“It wasn’t like a traditional horror story with someone getting hurt or anything, but it impacted the rest of my trip, and it will definitely be something I will remember for a long time,” Stratton said. 

Some memories are harmless, while others scar a little deeper and scare some students for quite some time. 

“I was in Florida for Spring Break, and when I was swimming, I felt something on my foot. I looked in the water, and my foot was in a fish’s head. Luckily, it was a dead fish that fishermen used as bait for larger fish,” junior Mckenzie Woods said.

Needless to say, she was a little scared by that event. 

“ I did not get in the water for the rest of the trip, but I still enjoyed the rest of the trip. It definitely put a damper on my trip, but it was definitely more of a memorable experience over a ‘ horror story.’ It shocked me nonetheless,” she said.

From harmless to scared to devious, sophomore Colton Bryan and his friends have a horror story to remember. 

“In Indiana, there wasn’t anything for me to do during Spring Break, so I went to Walmart around 3 a.m. My friends and I  were rolling balls around and kicking them to each other, and then they just banned us from Walmart. I couldn’t go to Walmart anymore, so I was bored in the house. But I still made my spring break better. It is a fun memory for me and my friends, and we still talk about it today for a good laugh,” Bryan said.

On the flip side of student’s Spring Break stories, some teachers are still scarred from the horrible events that have happened to them over their Spring Break. 

“ It was spring break 15 years ago, and it was actually my moms 80th birthday and my five sisters and I decided we were going to take her on a cruise for her birthday. We were going to go to Bar Harbor, Nova Scotia, and Maine,” guidance secretary, Karen Shotts said.

The experience only seemed to get worse and worse for Mrs. Shotts. 

“ We got on the cruise ship and it instantly started to rain. It was pouring, and it was just horrible, the whole time on the ship. Got off on a couple of ports and it was still pouring down rain. Literally you would have to wear boots and a raincoat to go outside. There was no sun, you couldn’t get out on the ship’s deck or anything. It was a miserable five days and we didn’t have a good time at all, and at some point the power even went out,” Shotts said. 

From a huge inconvenience, to a near death experience english teacher Mrs. Kuntz revealed her story. 

“My spring break horror  was when my husband wanted to drive home from Gulf Shores overnight instead of waiting until the morning. This resulted in us driving straight into a tornado, having to pull over into the shadiest hotel ever, and pay for two rooms just for us to sit there for two hours until the storm passed. The clerk wouldn’t even let me, my husband, and my father in law sit in the same room because he said ‘ three adults can cause problems real fast,” Mrs. Kuntz said.

Each story holds a unique genre of experiences and social studies teacher Mr. Grimes takes the cake for straight up horror. 

“One year for spring break when I was in high school, my family and I decided to go to a remote part of Pennsylvania and spend the week in a cabin. It was really creepy. The scariest part was when both of my dads decided to go on a snowmobile ride and they ended up  going over a mountain. They had to drive back on the highway and they ended up being gone for about four hours. Also, we were about five minutes away from a seemingly abandoned town. No shops were open and we didn’t meet any ew people that whole week,” social Studies teacher Timothy Grimes