This past Memorial Day weekend was reported to be the busiest travel weekend in history. How can that be? With all the complaining about inflation, gas prices, and food prices, I wondered how those two reports could coincide. Being my natural curious self, I did some research and was surprised at my findings.
I consider myself lucky that I no longer have to travel on holiday weekends. When my kids were young, vacations had to be planned around their school breaks, which always coincided with a holiday. But since then, I’ve avoided those crowded travel times. This is twofold; I’m graciously giving space to families with school time constraints and selfishly circumventing my own stress level brought on from overcrowded airports and delayed flights.
No longer having mouths to feed at home, I was able to travel to Connecticut this past weekend to see a long-time friend of mine’s daughter get married. It was fun. The weather was picture perfect, the mountains and rivers plentiful, and the roads windy.
My mother always said, no matter how old her children got, she wanted to see where they lived. That it made her rest better. And now, that is the way I feel, too.
The best part of a vacation is, as Carley Simon sang: anticipation. It gives you something to look forward to. I always know I am due a ‘vacay’ when the smallest things at work or home seem larger than they are, and the daily grind feels like drudgery. That is when I think, “I need a vacation,” and just the thought of getting away buoys my mood and increases my productivity.
The CDC recommends not traveling unless you absolutely must; and if you must, be smart about it. Weighing these recommendations, I thought about my upcoming and necessary trip to Miami, Florida. Should I rent an RV and drive? With a pull-along bed, bath, and kitchen I could quarantine throughout the three day drive down. It seemed like a responsible way to travel.
In the words of Mark Twain, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”
Son Gray and I attended the Dallas Gift Market this past week. It was my first time to go in…
