Are You Vacationing?

There is nothing like unplugging from a quest to reach dreams or goals or a desire to “get to” other than where we are and to just enjoy the moment, as so often can happen on a vacation.

Truly, to vacation and experience a world that is vastly rich with peoples and cultures and new ways to traverse this experience we call life allows for a richer and deeper appreciation for what we choose in our lives.  To vacation is not "the right thing to do” however, if you are one such a person who does not vacation, have you considered what you “might not know that you might not know” and could experience and learn from?

Perhaps for me the key factor in the importance of taking vacations is based on the fact that as a military kid moving from one state to the next every two to three years, and even to a foreign country, there was always a reason to vacation. Oftentimes we didn't spend a lot of money to vacation, however vacations were always important for our well being. 

Mom was an avid historian and would research our next vacation each time we would move to the next city.  She found numerous historical cities, along with the wonderful federal and state parks throughout our naturally rich with history and nature, United States. She drove us through the country visiting places like the huge sculptures of the four best Presidents representing the first 150 years American history.  We visited the massive dam of Niagara Falls, outside of Buffalo, New York, which holds back thousands of tons of water which pours over a 180 feet high cliff that is over a half of a mile wide, while at the same time feel the spray of mist that displays wonderful perpetual rainbows.  We walked across a plank laid across a tiny, muddy trickle of the assumed head of the 2350 mile long Mississippi River in Itasca State Park, Minnesota, and later were amazed by a visit to the Gulf of Mexico where the huge mouth of where the river culminates. 

Our idea of vacationing brings back fond memories of no television, no radios, not a MP3 player in sight nor thankfully needed. Instead we talked and we sang and we played games such as to how many different state license plates could we find along our travels. We spent valuable and now longed-for time together on our vacations. We traveled in big old wood paneled station wagons staying in inexpensive clean little motels or vacation rentals on military bases rented for a modest fee along the way. One summer we traveled in an old silver Airstream trailer camping along the way and sitting around campfires at night while listening and laughing to wonderful stories told by my parents or fellow campers visiting the same campground.  It was a pre-fast food environment and my very favorite place was Howard Johnson's where we would stop after a roadside picnic for dessert on special vacation occasions and I could order my favorite Peppermint Stick ice cream.
 

I knew that life was great. We were on vacation and I was with people I loved.

Dad was an avid fisherman and when we weren't moving from state to state or country to country, the "in-between" years we would be at some little fishing resort that would take a family of 4-8 kids, depending on the year, with fishing gear and aluminum skiffs, and a ski boat where he would drive madly around the lakes with kids in tow either solo or in tandem, depending upon the boat of the season and how large the motor was.  This was the basis of the years I have spent on sailing the oceans of the Pacific, Atlantic and Caribbean, I'm sure.   Dad would take off to fish in solitude while the rest of us would swim or fish our own way or sit around and read books with each other or get lost in a story alone. Often, we'd set up our meals on picnic tables outside with fellow resort vacationers and learn new things from new perspectives. 

Ah! The realization that life beyond our own imaginations was plentiful and rich and waiting to be discovered!

When we moved to Europe, Mother's itineraries spread from tiny little Moroccan cities in España to huge cathedrals in Italy and cities in France where she and my father might have visited previously during their assignments during WWII. Dad being the water person that he was would choose vacations along the Costa del Sol in beach cities such as Benidorm, Barcelona, and Sitges. 

Ah yes, vacations are important. To have accomplished what I have of which I am proud, my accomplishments have been based in my choice to continue my family tradition of vacationing. While I no longer stop at Howard Johnson's, I have had the pleasure of going camping just a few short miles from my own town deliciously isolated from the ‘city life’ lights and hustle and bustle while sitting next to a crackling fire under a star studded sky, while laughing with family and friends and fellow campers.  Or visiting the wonderful people of Fiji and SCUBA diving while taking movies and pictures of sharks being fed inches away from me; and visiting the Oktoberfest in Munich with friends from Germany and Austria; and sailing for 10 days in the British Virgin Islands, dropping anchor in deserted little anchorages and plunging into the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea; or traveling to Europe with an inexpensive Euroraíl pass, getting on and off the trains for visits to "Youth Hostels" where albeit the water wasn't always hot in the showers but the beds were welcome and the beds clean, while traveling the Bay of Biscay where Napoleon's wife, Josephine, had her estate, or a customized pizza was served to me in Brindisi, Italy, or ouzo was served to me in a Café Neon in Crete, Greece.

Because of vacations, I have been able to indulge in a favorite passion: to study people and cultures throughout the world; all along, getting to know the people of the world and learning to love the wonderful earth on which we live.  That what is available beyond my automatic ways-of-being in my life always opens my views wider and assist me in appreciating life for what I knew not.
 

Are you vacationing?