I'm not perfect. But I did take a perfect vacation two years ago. Ok, not perfect--we visited a total of 3 mechanics (one was a scheduled oil change, the other two were emergencies) during the 16 days away. But it was perfect nonetheless. I was flipping through the book I made afterward on Blurb this afternoon. Every day was perfectly planned, and even the one time we did need a mechanic to keep the van overnight, a rental car place was in the same parking lot AND it was the one point in the trip that was a loop. So we left the van, went to King's Canyon, and came back for the van the next day. Oakhurst, California, by the way, is a spectacularly friendly amazing place.
Anyway, the kids were good, there was something for everyone, and all of it varied. We went to the Santa Cruz boardwalk, Chinatown in San Francisco, at least 6 National Parks, including Yosemite, a beach, forests, deserts, playgrounds. We ate picnics and take out pizza in hotel rooms and pancake breakfasts in KOA campground rec rooms. Plenty of coffee, ice cream, carousels, mountains, local color, on and on and on.
Right now I'm planning a shorter trip to the Smokies this fall. But every time I sit down to work on it, I'm demoralized. Nothing will ever be as good as our California trip. And I also know that re-vacationing to California will not be the same, either, because we've done it before. We want to take a southwest trip sometime in the future, and a northwest trip, but that'll be when kids are older. We can't do those huge trips every year--but we do try to do something. This year, the Smokies are the destination. But it's like one of those floaters in your eye, you try to look at it and it darts away? I can't focus. I keep thinking of red rocks and Sentinel Beach and Big Sur (poor Big Sur) and wishing, wishing, wishing I were there instead.
Ah well. There are other things to see and do. But I'm the girl who finds the one item on the menu she likes and always orders that when we go to that restaurant. Never mix never worry kind of thing. I found the vacation I like. Why would I want to do something else?
Kind of a pathetic thing to complain about, I know. And I'm not really complaining. Mostly just wistful...
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I'm not accusing you of this BY ANY MEANS, but this reminded me of our trip to Italy back in 2002. It was absolutely amazing, but my memory of the trip definitely glosses over the daily annoyances. Like, as vegetarians, we had only a little bit of difficult finding great food every day. But each day it was this hour-long investigation of the area we were touring, scoping out the best possible lunch. It was annoying. We were starving, tired and crabby. But always found something to eat. But do I remember that when I look at the pictures? Absolutely not.
I heard someone say once that we have selective memory when it comes to things like vacations, weddings, etc. I can definitely agree with that most of the time. But since hearing that, I try really hard to stay in the moment each day, every day. That way I know right NOW if my reality is as good as the memory will be. Does that make sense? I figure I may as well enjoy now as much as I can because the memory won't be as accurate.
Sigh, I blabber without sense sometimes!
Oh, perfectly reasonable when applied to our trip. Like I said--the van's brakes FAILED in the Sierra Nevada mountains. We never had trouble finding anything to eat, but one time in San Francisco Maeve had a complete mental breakdown on a bus. And then there was the long night on US 6 through western Utah...there were not enough DVDs in the world to keep Maeve occupied. But there were moments that were unbelievably lucky and wonderful, as well. Maybe because it was all so real, so magnified real-life, that I remember it so fondly. I just look into the near future of smaller trips and one-destination stops and sigh wistfully.
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