Vacay and Day-Trippin’

Now that summer’s in full swing, thoughts turn to getting away.

I’m not a resort vacationer. Nothing was more stressful to me than the two times we left home for a week or more for a place like Disney World.

Standing in lines with cranky, tired kids, spending boatloads of money on bad food and “prizes” that will probably be thrown away within a month, listening to the kids bicker from Day Two onward, all the while imagining our house has burned down, but no one can reach us. (It’s just one of those irrational fears, since 10-20 people would be calling at once if something actually happened, but still I worry about it.)

Plus having to come home and catch up on all the work that’s been sitting there waiting for me.

Then discovering someone ate half a tuna sandwich before we left, and the other half has been sitting in the trash can, stinking up the house for a week. In July.

Ugh! No, thanks.

I’m a back-to-nature vacationer. I liked hiking, especially hiking to World’s End State Park as a kid at Camp Lackawanna, but now I have to find easier trails, and I can’t carry nearly as much as in the old days.

I like camping – love it, in fact, whether it’s camping on the beach or in the woods. I go into full pioneer mode — cooking over a campfire, taking walks through the woods, telling stories around the fire, the smell of crushed grass scenting my sleeping bag, showing off my one-match campfire and survival s’mores & banana bake skills. However, I’m only good for about 3 days. After that, I want a real bed, a hot shower, a microwave, and a flush toilet. Not necessarily in that order.

Day-trips are my ideal, though. Go out, have fun, come home and sleep in your own bed.

Tomorrow, we’re doing a “whole family” day-trip, to the Herkimer Diamond Mines in Herkimer, NY. Gramma and Grandpa, my sister and I, and a whole lotta kids: my step-sister and her boyfriend, two of my three monkeyshines plus PK’s girlfriend, and my niece and nephew. We’re taking hammers and buckets and other neat tools to whack rocks and hunt for quartz crystals that were, in ages past, mistaken for diamonds.

Fun in dirt! Yayz!

So, what’s your preference – getting away for the whole vacation, day-trips, or something in between?