Canton's Own Griswold Family Goes on 'Vacation'

On July 20, a Canton family pulled into Walt Disney World in a green Wagon Queen Family Truckster, emulating the famous journey made by Chevy Chase and his family in the 1983 film "National Lampoon's Vacation."

Steve and Lisa Griswold (yes, that's their real name) left their day jobs as the owners of Pixie Vacations in Canton and took their daughters Amber and Brooke to the Florida amusement park to celebrate the fictional Griswold's road trip. 

"When I would give someone my business card, they would give me this incredulous look," Lisa said. "They would say, 'A Griswold is planning my vacation?'"

Whenever the family would go on their personal vacations, they would get jokes and good-natured ribbing about their surname, and eventually Steve (not Clark) decided that if they're going to be Griswolds, they might as well vacation like Griswolds.

Steve found an old station wagon a few weeks ago, and had a local body shop convert it into the legendary Wagon Queen Family Truckster, complete with (empty) Samsonite luggage on the rack and a Cherokee County vanity plate that reads "TRCKSTR."

The luggage proved to be the most Griswold-ian incident of the road trip.

"We were an hour outside Atlanta doing about 70 on I-75 when we heard this horrible noise," Lisa said. "I look behind us and the luggage we tied to the roof is bouncing off the back of the car."

Lisa told Steve to pull off to the shoulder, which was no small feat for a station wagon in the far left lane. Thankfully, the luggage didn't actually fall off the Truckster until it was safely out of traffic.

"I had to run down the shoulder of I-75 to pick up the luggage," Lisa said.

During their four-day trek to Disney World, other drivers and passers by would honk, give thumbs up signs, and other shows of support for the family, which had written "Wally World" on the rear window, but crossed out Wally and added "Disney". 

"We would go into gas station and people who didn't know the movie would look at us with sympathy," Steve said.

The family invited interested onlookers to follow their progress on the road through their Twitter page, which now has almost 200 followers.

The Griswolds worked hand-in-hand with Disney's Public Relations department to make the most of their magical trip. Once in Orlando, Disney invited the family to take the Truckster on the Richard Petty Driving Experience track at a pedestrian 30 m.p.h. while a Lamborghini blew past them, echoing the role played by Christie Brinkley in the 1983 film.

"Unfortunately, that fell through," Lisa said.

Now that the Griswolds are back in Canton, they have no plans to stop working on the Truckster or stop doing family road trips.

"We're working on adding Aunt Edna and the dog, and getting the hand held Pac-Man machine in the car," Lisa said.

The Griswolds will be returning to Disney in September with the Truckster. All of us at Patch sincerely hope that the mouse out front won't tell them that the park is closed.