The Saturday Morning Blogger – Vacations

James Barrington

Google defines “vacation” as “an extended period of recreation, especially one spent away from home or in traveling.”

When I was part of the work-a-day world, a vacation to me definitely involved leaving home and phone behind. More importantly than that, it involved a change of pace. I didn’t want to be ruled by a timepiece. It involved a change of scenery – preferably one with a completely different type of scenery than what I could see within fifty miles of home.

I grew up watching Walter Cronkite and Charles Kuralt. Charles Kuralt spent his professional life “On the road” seeing America. That lifestyle appealed to me – and still does to this day. For me, a perfect vacation involves having some place in mind that I would like to visit, but plenty of time to go there and get back without stressing over a schedule. Too many lives are ruled by schedules. My professional life was ruled by clocks and calendars, with appointments, meetings, deadlines and other generally annoying obstacles to “smelling the roses.” In my perfect vacation (which I have never had), I pull away from the house heading in the general direction of my ultimate destination, and drive. If I see something along the way that catches my eye or piques my imagination, I stop and take a closer look – probably photographing as I go. When it’s time to sleep, I’ll stop and sleep. When it’s time to eat, I’ll find food. Maybe I’ll eat in a restaurant or maybe I’ll cook a meal over a campfire. That concept drives my wife crazy. So, in order not to have to listen to “where are we spending tonight” every fifteen minutes, I’ve given in to her programmed, packaged idea of a vacation just to get her to make a trip out of the house.

In recent years, I’ve heard her grudgingly agree in such a way that I know it won’t be worth the effort to actually leave the house. I love my wife, but many of her interests and mine exist in different universes. Very seldom do we find common grounds on television shows or movies, and the Bible is about the only book we both read.

So, on those rare occasions when we leave Randall County together, we don’t drive and see the sights (my choice), we fly (her choice) and tolerate being treated like our baggage (which was lost both going and coming and left out in the rain to collect water on the return flight) on our last trip. Maybe I should write a book about that.

On the other hand, I’ll just write a blog…