Personally, I’ve never been a big fan of vacations. For me,
they’ve always been spelled,
”
W-O-R-K.
”
Personally, I’ve never been a big fan of vacations. For me, they’ve always been spelled, “W-O-R-K.”
As a kid, summers meant additional chores to “keep us busy and out of trouble.” We did have a TV but usually only watched it on Saturday morning (My Friend Flicka, Fury, Sky King) and Sunday night (Bonanza in living color).
Once a year, we’d all go on a three-week vacation. It was always in June and always at the same place – the family’s rustic, lakeside cabin in northern Wisconsin. This annual trip also always had a work goal – painting, shingling, redigging the well…
Adults and kids worked side by side on that year’s project until 3–ish. Then the grownups sat down at the picnic table for happy hour, and the kids were released to play.
We always headed to the lake. Not one of the sane adults would have entered the water, but we didn’t care about the color or the smell. We built dikes out of stones the winter ice had pushed onto our beach. We floated birch-skinned canoes from dock to dock. We pulled lily pads and wore them on our heads like crowns.
We played creatively until the sun slid behind birch trees and whippoorwills called to their mates. Then, we’d dry ourselves on faded Minnie Mouse towels and reach for the salt shaker.
All those hours in the muddy water usually meant that some leeches had fastened themselves to our shriveled toes. A little of the saline spice and the uninvited critters would shrivel up and fall right back into the mud where they belonged.
When I got married and moved to California, I discovered that some people didn’t go to the same place each summer. They went camping and got to visit a different site every trip. Since it didn’t include white washing any docks, I said, “Sounds great. Count me in!”
Naively, I began to prepare.
I cooked stews, spaghetti and sloppy Joe mix and froze them so that we’d have prepared food in our makeshift campsite. I stockpiled clothing and diapers for our 3-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter. I borrowed or bought everything I thought I might need to live in the wilderness for one week.
Finally, the big day. After a long drive to Eagle Lake, we unloaded our stuff and set up camp by the car headlights.
Other fuzzy memories of that first trip include running a block to the bathrooms with one or both children 20 times a day and a couple of times each night… standing at our little Coleman stove to heat water for washing, for dishes, for meals… air mattresses that wouldn’t hold air and sleeping bags that lumped and rolled and got their zippers stuck every time you moved … waking up cold and stiff every morning…..
Just two days into the week, I wondered why any sane person would put “camping” and “vacation” in the same sentence! I longed for the good old days of hauling cinder blocks or raking leaves.
The next summer, I begged my husband to let me stay home. I offered to repaint the house or tear off shingles if he wouldn’t make me go camping again.
I never won that discussion, but I did get better over the years at delegating chores and letting everyone get dirtier. We still laugh at some of our many family camping misadventures (the thunderstorms in South Dakota, the bears at Glacier, the Hell’s Angels at Yosemite…)
This year, my in-laws are taking the entire family on a cruise to Alaska. Once again, I’m tempted to believe in the concept of a REAL vacation. It sounds like the ship’s crew will take care of repairs and maintenance.
I shouldn’t need a salt shaker if my painted toes find their way to the pool. And, since the rooms come stocked with hot showers and the staff will be serving all the meals, I shouldn’t need to heat water or bring any frozen spaghetti.
I am wondering if we’ll laugh as hard or make as many memories when there isn’t anything to do but sit by a pool and read a book or watch magnificent scenery float by. Maybe not, but just for this year, that’s okay. As Charlie Brown said, “A whole stack of memories never equals one little hope.”
