2024, Family, Food, Gatherings, Kids, Travel, Uncategorized

How Do You Know

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Husband and I don’t travel very much. Twice a year I have to go to a conference in various destinations in the US or Canada as part of my work on a regulatory board, and Husband sometimes goes along. If I didn’t have to attend the conferences we wouldn’t travel as much. We are just too busy with work, gardens, and family pets to leave home very often.

This week we are visiting our daughter in Tacoma, WA. It is so nice to travel without an agenda or meetings to attend.. Wednesday we drove to Gig Harbor to a wonderful bagel shop and cooking store that Daughter loves, and walked around in the marina. We also saw a very strange tree.

We then had a lovely evening with Daughter and two of her dear friends, a married couple, at a wonderful Italian restaurant. Of course, we had to have a sampling of Washington wines masterfully curated by the friend’s husband.

My Husband asked this morning “How do you know you are on vacation?” To him, it means that someone else is letting the dog out, or else he is by a large body of water. To me, it means that I have no access to work emails, and someone else does the driving. Daughter has curated our trip nicely, planning visits to lovely restaurants and time with her friends, along with some great sightseeing. Yesterday we drove north of Seattle, stopping off at the Tulip Festival in Mount Vernon, then driving farther north and west to Anacortes, where where we got the ferry to Orcas Island and a B and B way in the middle of nowhere.

We were advised to travel there in the daylight, as the road there had so many switchbacks. It is a beautiful place. This is the view from the front room.

Today we go whale watching. By Saturday we will be back in Tacoma for more luncheons with Daughter’s friends, and an appointment at a candle making studio. Monday we go home.

How do you know that you are on vacation? What are the best and worst vacations you ever had?

26 thoughts on “How Do You Know”

      1. I was looking for it on past Trails but couldn’t find it. It was bad but not, as it turned out, the whole vacation. Once we escaped Groundhog, Colorado we had a nice time.

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  3. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    I know I am on vacation when I feel so absorbed by where I am and what I am doing that my mind is free of my daily life. Ten years ago we were in Europe right now. That vacation met all the criteria for taking my mind away from daily life.

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    1. A bit before noon Lou is returning home. I hope we can make this work. Next week will start in home services. I will post on CB late today.

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  6. I’m on vacation when I’m not sleeping in my bed with my pillow (but sometimes that could also be a business-related trip, so I’ll change my answer.) I’m on vacation when I’m energized by the spirit of adventure of seeing new places or doing new activities (or the same activities in different places or on different dates (like XC skiing on the North Shore on favorite trails year after year.

    Best vacation–probably our 35th anniversary trip to Oregon. I played 4+ rounds of golf in “Golf Heaven”– Bandon Dunes. The we motored over to perhaps the best B&B we’ve ever experienced not far from Crater Lake NP. Then to the east side of the Cascades for more golf and sightseeing. Found some nice little wineries in the Rogue River Valley. Had a super relaxing two weeks.

    But we’ve had too many great vacations to even single that one out. Our three trips to Europe have been highlight reel worthy. One trip to Banff NP and surrounding area had some major highlights, including our first and only up close and personal with wolves in the wild–about 30 yds from us.

    We’ve had many fantastic trips to Grand Teton NP, Yellowstone, Glacier, British Columbia NW Washington, our honeymoon out to Cape Cod and back, etc. etc.

    I think great trips are a result of careful thorough planning and going with the right traveling companion. Thankfully my wife is that companion. I also think I do a good job of planning so we don’t have problems or get stuck doing things we don’t really want to do or visiting places we’re not interested in.

    Worst vacation? None come to mind. Just a few that weren’t nearly as enjoyable as we thought they’d be. But still, no disasters hit us.

    Chris in Owatonna

    **BSP** Got a gig at the Dundas Dome tomorrow from 9-3. A home and garden show/community market fair sponsored by the Northfield Area Chamber of Commerce. I’ll have all four of my books for sale, and there’ll be at least one other author there.

    I think there’ll be around 100 vendors of all sorts. Weather looks excellent for a mini-road trip if you’re in the Cities or not near Northfield. Check out my latest blog post at chrisnorbury.com for links that supply more details. **END BSP**

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  7. Anxiety is often an unwelcome companion when I travel, as I am less and less able to deal with uncertainty. I was really relieved to get to our B and B last night before dark. I am not at all anxious about whale watching today. Someone else will be in charge, and that makes the difference, I think.

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  9. I also know I am on vacation when I am somewhere in April with flowering Magnolia trees and rhododendrons. Everything has leafed out here, and it is really green.

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  12. No vacations until months off which never happened after high school.

    Now retired, I get out of the apartment and take several days to explore Ohio history.

    It’s hard to take longer vacations with The Birds. They and I hate boarding.

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  13. Vacation?  No clients. 

    I couldn’t possibly pick a favorite vacation – YA and I are extremely compatible when we travel so all our trips have been good ones. And a couple of my favorite trips were actually with clients – so technically not vacays.

    Worst?  I’m not sure I’ve written about the whole thing, but I know I’ve ponied up the Wall Drug part of that trip, which was the tail end.  With hindsight (and hopefully some maturity), I have to take my share of blame for this trip.  Going on vacation with a spouse when you are pretty sure you don’t want to stay married to that spouse is not a good idea.  Things that I might have found funny or appealing years before were most assuredly not.   

    One of the silliest parts of the trip was the camera quandary.  This was back in the day before cameras on cell phones and every photo cost you money to be developed.  Wasband was notoriously … frugal.  At every good photo opportunity we quarreled about where the best vantage point would be for the photo because he didn’t want to “waste” film.  When we eventually got the film developed (onto slides no less), there were so many duplicate photos of the same thing – one from the vantage point he liked and one from the vantage point that I liked.  Of course, all the photos are great, no matter where we were standing when we took them.  So childish – both of us!

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  14. I’ve just been on a very relaxing vacation for the last week. It was good to be in a place where I could just sit and relax and not feel like I needed to go do things or try to get a lot done. The weather wasn’t great at all. There was some snow, sleet and rain, as well as gale warnings on the big lake. I read in front of the fireplace, and Pippin and I enjoyed going for walks during breaks in the weather. This morning the wind stopped, the sun rose in a clear sky, and I had to leave.

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  15. Well, today we saw a pod of seven orcas leaping and diving, as well as a whole bunch of very smelly Stellar Sea Lions basking on rocks. You could smell them across the water to the boat. They were bellowing and grunting.

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