Tag Archives: vacation

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

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PB and I aren’t world travelers. Our idea of a great vacation is to drive 2-3 hours from home, find a nice little town we’ve never been to before, and see what there is to see. It works for us because after 2-3 days, we’ve seen just about everything there is to see and we can come home and sleep in our own bed again. A get-away like this breaks us free from our routine. Plus, we end up meeting some really “Midwest-nice” people along the way.

On the way to our destination, we saw this store and had to stop.
Oddities? Yes, please.

After more driving, we stopped for lunch Someplace Else.

I guess I ordered a plate of pub chips with a side of turkey sandwich.

After getting settled in and taking a short nap, we went to the Visitor Information building and had a lovely chat with Janet. She gave us all kinds of tips and we had some good laughs. Janet recommended a supper club on the lake, so we headed over there. It was a 45-minute wait for a table, but we weren’t in a hurry. We had drinks (Sprite and Dr. Pepper) while looking out over the beautiful lake and talked to Colleen and her husband. The 45 minutes flew by.

The next day we got on a big boat with a trumpet-playing captain
and toured the lake,
while watching an 18-year-old jump off and on the moving vessel,
delivering mail.

Then we decide to drive across the state line and look up one of my relatives.
We found her!

Colleen had invited us to a water ski show,
so that night we sat on the shore of another lake
and mourned the loss of Tommy Bartlett’s while cheering on the Aquanuts.

Janet told us to check out the Yerkes Observatory so we drove over there,
but we missed the tour so we just observed it.

On our last morning, we walked around part of the lake,
gawking at beautiful mansions.
PB and I decided we’d settle for this one.

And that’s what we did on our summer vacation.

Road Trip

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Once in a while, PB and I like to jump in the car and take off.
We don’t do long vacations or travel the world.
We like being home.

Since retiring to the woods we feel like we’re on perpetual vaca,
so occasionally an adventure is in order.
Today is that day.

You’ll never guess where we’re going…

Vacation

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Three weeks ago PB and I went on vacation.

As you can see, I forgot to come back.

In Europe, everybody goes on vacation in August.

For the whole month.

Me too.

Every August.

 For the rest of my life.

I just decided that.

I’ll push the re-set button in September.

Sunday of summer

Vacation

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Today,

I  smell a yellow rose,

drink coffee from a smiley cup,

and watch PB read the paper across the table.

No deep thoughts,

no pressing demands,

no duties to perform.

I am taking a vacation

from myself.

 “Come away with me to a quiet place and get some rest.”  Mark 6:31

Love Story: Puerto Rico

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Episode #7

beachA few weeks after our engagement, I was scheduled to go to Puerto Rico with my dad and step-mom.  For some reason they thought it would be a nice idea to let me come along with them on their winter get-away.  Since I was a grown-up girl, they figured I would be low-maintenance.  They could do some sight-seeing and leave me to sunbathe by the pool.

It was extremely generous of my parents to share their vacation with me, and I was excited about going.  That is, until a sparkly diamond ring was securely on my finger.  The thought of leaving my brand new fiancé was more than I could bear.  I wanted to be with him every second of every minute of every day.  But, alas, the plane ticket was purchased so I had to leave the snowy, subzero midwest for the beautiful beaches of an island in the Caribbean.

I cried the whole time.

Well, not the whole time, but enough of the time that I put a real damper on the vacation.  I wrote love letters and sad poems while sitting by the pool.  I longed to talk to PB, but phone calls were out of the question.  Every beautiful sunset made me cry because he wasn’t with me.

The day we were to fly home, there was a huge blizzard that shut down O’Hare.  I was beside myself.  We got as far as Miami but couldn’t get a flight back to Chicago.  I begged my dad to get me home to my true love.  I’m sure he was just as anxious to bring the vacation to an end as I was.  He managed to find a flight to Kansas City where we waited on standby for another flight to Milwaukee.  Finally, we three bedraggled travelers boarded a train and headed west.  I called PB and explained the situation.  Between “I love you” and “I miss you”  I told him where the train was coming in (30 miles away) and when (midnight).  A little blizzard wasn’t going to stop him from getting to me.

In the middle of the night, the Amtrak pulled in to a quiet station.  Because we hadn’t planned on this route home, we didn’t have any winter coats with us.

The train stopped and the three of us stepped off with all our luggage.

Into a snow bank.

On the wrong side of the train.

We stood there, in our t-shirts and shorts, shivering as the length of the train zoomed by.

When the caboose finally passed, I looked up on the platform.  I could faintly see an outline of a handsome figure through the falling snow.  My rescuer.  I was so happy to finally see him after suffering through that long week in Puerto Rico.

So was my dad.