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What’s on readers’ minds? I often ask myself that question. In August, you told me lots about travel and food.

That came in response to two columns. One was about the car-repair and weather-plagued Casey family “vacation from hell.” The other was about Turner Place at Lavery Hall, Virginia Tech’s new dining Taj Mahal.

So let’s jump right in to the August reader mailbag.

First up is Rebecca Evans of Botetourt County. She recounted two vacations that made my family’s travails look like chicken feed.

The first was Evans’ honeymoon. Her brand-new brother-in-law thought it would be a great prank to put some sardines on the exhaust manifold of the car the newlyweds drove to Hilton Head Island. Ho, ho.

“He unhooked the transmission tube when he did that and forgot to hook it back up. By the time we got to Hilton Head, the car wouldn’t go out of second gear. So we spent the first day at a mechanic’s shop where he charged us $300 to hook the tube back up.”

Then she came down with conjunctivitis. As that cleared up, her groom got hit with a cold so bad he spent two days in bed.

How could any honeymoon go worse?

READ THE REST OF THIS COLUMN HERE.