Friday Five: Vacation, All I Ever Wanted...

Mary Beth from RevGalBlogPals writes...

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted... I'm showing my age...
This was an anthem of my high school years. Wanna hear it? Give this link a try. While you're bopping along to that (or perhaps holding your ears...?), let's think about VACATIONS! I certainly am!

1) What did your family do for vacations when you were a child? Or did you have stay-cations at home?

We did a lot of car trips, driving 9 people in the family VW Bus or Chrysler station wagon. It was fun, but not. It was pre-Interstate. Pre-Air Conditioning (until I was a teenager). Pre-in-car video. (Walking uphill in the snow. Both Ways. OK... I'll stop!)

We also got to tag along when my dad had professional meetings (easy on the meetings, heavy on the fun) near the New York World's Fair in 1964, and Expo 67 in Montreal. Those were car trips, too. It was extremely rare that we took planes. Maybe twice that I can recall.

Another favorite activity was family camping (which I now understand was a "vacation" for everyone but my mom...) We usually went tent-camping at a primitive campground near the Appalachian Trail, sometimes in the Great Smokies. Usually there was a spigot of drinking water, but no showers and no toilets. We lashed a latrine and washed up in the stream. While we kids helped with the cooking, my mom was the engineer of shopping, menus and entertainment. And laundry. LOTS of laundry. I'm guessing this photo was taken towards the beginning of a trip because we all look fairly clean and showered...


2) Tell us about your favorite vacation ever:

Anytime I go here....


It's a quiet, natural beach in South Carolina. God shows up every time. August can't come too soon.

3) What do you do for a one-day or afternoon getaway...is there a place nearby that you escape to on a Saturday afternoon/other day off?

What is this "day off" you speak of?? Between pastoral duties, family, friends and grad. school, I don't get one very often. I try to schedule every quarter a part-day silent retreat at Dayspring Retreat Center. I forgot my camera in March, but here's the beauty of the place - even in January...


4) What's your best recommendation for a full-on vacation near you...what would you suggest to someone coming to your area? (Near - may be defined any way you wish!)

If you are coming to the Washington, DC area, I would encourage you to do maybe two days at the MOST in DC proper (the Monuments, the Smithsonian, etc) and then the rest of the week away from the madness. Go to Mount Vernon. Or the Baltimore Aquarium. Pay for cheap seats to a concert at Wolftrap. Then drive to some place like Monticello or Harper's Ferry, and chill the rest of the week. If life isn't complete without a theme park, an outlet mall, or a boardwalk with suntan oil and funnel cake, I'll give you a map... but I wouldn't go there myself.

SUGGESTION: do NOT come to visit in June, July and August. Traffic is awful. It's beastly humid and hot. The Mall (the "National" Mall - you know, the one with all the monuments?) is not air conditioned. You've been warned...


5) What's your DREAM VACATION?

I am going to take my Bearded Brewer and go back here... to the Bavarian Alps. To the spa pool with drinks served poolside. oh yeah.........


Bonus: Any particularly awful (edited to add: or hilarious) vacation stories that you just have to tell? ("We'll laugh about this later..." maybe that time is now!)

Travelling pre-Intestate meant that at least ONE of us kids (there were seven of us) ended up getting carsick. My mom finally resorted to preparing a "barf bucket" -- a gallon milk jug with the top cut down for easy access. Apparently, as she tells it, one trip was particularly bad -- the road was in terrible shape, it was nasty weather, and we apparently took turns with the bucket.

I don't have pictures of that. You'll just have to trust me. It wasn't pretty. The upside of it was that we became steadfast fans of Dramamine...

And with that... I'll stop.

My vacation starts in 90 days...

Deb