Vacation Ponderings

Two weeks ago we went on our first family vacation in two years.  I had something booked and partially planned for June 2020, had booked that in late February, but our VRBO was canceled by the owner by the end of April and then by the time we thought maybe we'd be ok with going somewhere, Matt's vacation weeks were long past and school was about to start.  So, for the first time in our marriage we didn't take a annual vacation.

It took us until late April 2021 to decide that we were comfortable with going on vacation this year.  We knew when, Matt has to request his summer weeks off nearly a year in advance, but now the question was of where.  It made me all sorts of out of sorts when it came to planning this trip.  MANY places were booked, I looked in EIGHT states for a beach vacation.  It was stressful.  I booked our trip 6 weeks before we left.  That is, by far, the closest I have ever booked one.  I was still planning it up until the day before we left (also cutting it super close for me)!

Here's the thing about vacations and traveling (not always the same thing): they are a lot of work.  I marvel at how my parents pulled it off time and time again with the 6 of us when we were kids.  I spent a lot of time planning and then a lot of time packing and working ahead on things so we'd have food when we got home.  Getting a house sitter, stuffing as many picture books as I could into a box to take along (read every single one, thank you, many more than once).  It's A LOT of work.  

But then we got to get away for a week.  Our longest trip in quite awhile (7.5 nights away - we got home at 3:40am so that definitely counts as ½ a night).  We put 2000+ miles on our Pilot and all those hours in the car definitely came with some stress too.  BUT...being stressed somewhere else can be better than stressed at home!  It was wonderful to get away and to practically (Luke had been out of school just over a week) kick off summer with a big trip to reset all our routines and habits from the school year.

I did a lot of vacations as a kid and now I am dragging my own kids along on trips.  Vacations no longer have that "I'm so excited I can't sleep" the night before energy that they used to.  More "I'm so worried we forgot something that I can't sleep" energy.  (Or, in this case, as I was trying to nap 2 hours after we left Cincinnati a sudden "I definitely know what we forgot at that hotel and I know exactly where it was and how the heck are we going to get it back."  Didn't nap after that.)  As a kid I didn't have to keep an eye on the gas tank and how soon we'd see a gas station or worry about the weather forecast (we didn't have cell phones to obsessively refresh!).  I didn't have to try to sneak in sleep when I wasn't driving so I'd be rested when my turn came (even without driving through the night, naps still required.).  As a kid I wasn't worried about cost beyond the spending money I took for souvenirs.  I was more concerned with carefully allocating the 3 rolls of 24 exposure film that I had brought! (One thing I NEVER worry about now!)  

But, there is still something magical about getting away.  Especially on a good old fashioned road trip.  Being stuck in the car with Matt & the boys brings back memories of so many hours I spent stuck in my parents' Astro van with my sisters, Mom, and Dad.  Matt turned on a playlist of animated musicals from my phone as I was driving through Dayton, a city with many memories from college and beyond, and that playlist featured songs from Anastasia quite prominently.  I sung along to ALL of them, remembering all the times my sisters and I sang the same songs on long family trips. (Sam: "Why you not singing Dad? Why only Mom singing??")

17 years ago my sisters and I lined up, in born order, on these exact stairs for a picture that sat on my parents' mantel for years.  I was determined to find them in Savannah and Matt actual spotted them first.  I asked how he knew they were "the" stairs. "Because I've seen that picture 100 times." (I forgot he was in my life back then.)

On this trip we spent a few days in Savannah, a place I had visited with my family 17 years prior, on the last vacation for the 8 of us, the last vacation I took with my family. (The next year I graduated college, got my first real job, and got engaged.)  I didn't remember much of our few hours in the city back then but this time we did go to the few places I remembered visiting.  It was hard to believe all the time and life that had been lived since I had last been there.  The 6 of us girls were ages 23 to (almost) 10 and now, between us, have 22 (!!) kids.  

The second part of our trip was to Florida, Amelia's Island.  We had taken Luke to the Gulf twice but neither boy had been to the Atlantic Ocean before.  Matt and I last saw the Atlantic from Dingle, Ireland 9 years ago.  The last we had seen of this side of the Atlantic was in the Outer Banks 10 years ago.  11 years before THAT Outer Banks trip I had been with my family there too.  Amelia's Island wasn't quite the same as the Outer Banks but still enough was the same that it brought back ocean memories there too.  Of the walks along the beach, picking up too many shells to carry, the huge waves and and constant of the water coming in and out.   And the usual "Back up! You don't have your swimsuit on!" yells. 

It was a strange sensation of time expanding and condensing all at once.  I've been extra nostalgic lately, I think something to do with a pending big birthday (still 2+ years away but it is lingering HEAVY in my mind, already).  My childhood feels like a very long time ago, and it was!  I graduated high school TWENTY years ago this month.  Yet, so many things happen that make being a kid, in the 8-12 range, seem like not THAT long ago.  It probably has something to do with Luke being 8 with a (slowly) growing independence.  My childhood and teenage years, my life before Matt entered it at 18, has felt extra close lately.  Like if I try hard enough I could just reach through a veil and grab it.  

Maybe it means I'm fostering the same kind of childhood for my kids as my parents did for my sisters and I (doubtful, I will never be as organized or patient as my mother).  But there has to be something to watching my boys live through stages that I mostly (Luke) and barely (Sam) remember.  Knowing that we are packing their little minds with memories and experiences they will pull out long into their adult years.  Maybe in two decades Luke will revisit some of the places we've taken him and have a strange sensation of re-living the time his parents took him there.  

I've said for at least 20 years that the best decisions my parents made when it came to us 6 girls (besides having us and being lucky enough to have all girls) is deciding to homeschool us and taking us on family vacations.  Those decisions continue to impact my life well into adulthood.  Traveling doesn't have quite have the same magic now (homeschooling DEFINITELY doesn't, after our corona school experience last year...I loved being homeschooled but am not good at being the teacher), requires a heck of a lot more time, stress, and money as an adult, but my parents instilled in me a love of seeing new places and having family adventures.

Being stuck in the car together for 2000+ miles has a certain magic to it.  The rain and the traffic and the hours and even the "are we there yet?" and "I'm bored!" all combine to make something we'll remember, even when the details get lost to time. 

(Beach vacations make me introspective, 3½ years ago: Letting Vacation Change You)