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Wednesday, October 5, 2016

The lure of travel

When D and I decided to start trying for a family way back in the day, we were sort of burned out on travel.

We certainly weren't super-adventurous travelers, but we did a bit in our 8 years of togetherness before children (2 before marriage and 6 after):

Caribbean cruise (St. Thomas / Barbados / Dominica / Martinique / Puerto Rico / St. Maarten)
Grand Cayman Island
Las Vegas, NV
The Grand Canyon
Death Valley, CA
Virginia Beach, VA, including Chincoteague, VA, Assateague Island and Colonial Williamsburg
Savannah, GA
Panama City, FL
Niagara Falls
Toronto, Canada
Italy (Florence / Rome / Isle of Capri / Sorrento / Venice)
Greece (Athens / Olympia / Delphi / various islands)
Iceland

Since having children, our travel has changed.  In the past 12 years, we've been to--

Orlando, FL (Disney / Universal Studios---3 times, and if I never go back again it will be too soon.)
Traverse City, MI and the UP
Gulf Shores, AL (2 times)
Sanibel Island, FL
Edisto Island, SC
and a slathering of other small, closer-to-home places, like Indianapolis, IN, Columbus, OH and Nashville, TN

The kids have gotten to a point where I'm starting to think we can travel to some more interesting places, although the way M carried on complaining as we walked through the Indy Zoo the other day leaves me wondering how rational this plan actually is.

My goal is to take them to Utah in two years to see the Mighty 5 National Parks (Zion, Bryce, Arches, Canyonlands, and Capitol Reef), although realistically I'd be happy to see Zion and Bryce and call it a day.

Eventually, we want to take them to Washington, DC and over to Delaware, but that will have to be when M is closer to middle-school age.  There is enough shite in DC to not have to listen to more of it coming from my complaining kids' mouths.

Next year, though, we'll probably just go to Hilton Head, SC.  All of us love the ocean, but G, especially, loves being in the waves.

My parents always talked about taking me and my brother to a dude ranch when we were kids, but we never did.  I'm not sure why.  My parents made the mistake of listening to what my brother and I said sometimes, so when we complained about the prospect, they might have heeded our fussing.  They never did this when we complained about going to church, so I suspect a dude ranch wasn't a top priority for them.

On my personal list of places to see is the following:

Key West, FL (the tentative plan is for me and D to go here next year for our 20th anniversary--hence the reason we'll just head to the beach with the kids for a "simple" vacation.)

Maine (Arcadia National Park)
Quebec, Canada
Hawaii
Africa (on safari)
Yellowstone National Park
Denmark

Talking about travel is one of my absolute favorite things to do if I can't actually be traveling.








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