Today I went back to my body pump class after being on vacation for the week.
It was hard, but not as hard as I thought it was going to be.
I rewarded myself with raspberries and pea pods from the farmer's market,
Now I think I will have a Diet Coke, I know, I know, not the best choice, but I earned it.
Now on to something entirely different.
We had such a wonderful time on our family vacation in Michigan last week.
When I was growing up, my dad always planned a summer vacation for our family.
I am not sure about this, but I do not think that my mom had much input into these trips.
Some summers our vacations were spent at a cottage on a lake up north, usually with family friends.
Other summers, he would plan a road trip.
We always took the scenic routes, although, truth be told, I am not so sure that interstates were around yet.
Two of my most memorable trips were one out west to see the Badlands, Mt. Rushmore, Wall Drug, the Corn Palace, the carving of Crazy Horse, and other sites in South Dakota
I remembered wanting to see the mountains so badly, but my brother was a serious baseball player and we were on his time schedule. We did get a picture by the Wyoming and Colorado welcome signs but did not see any mountains on that trip.
It was till a great trip though.
We would drive until my dad didn't want to drive anymore and then he would pull into a small motel, no big chains for him, too expensive or maybe they also had not been invented yet.
My dad always went into a room with the motel person, then he would rent the room. I still don't know what he was looking for, cleanliness, I suppose, but it will remain a mystery to me. I just liked how it always worked that way.
He usually would find a motel near a shopping center or some other attraction so my mom, my brother, and me could walk (mom did not drive although she had a license, long story) there while my dad had a few drinks to unwind.
I always secretly hoped he would pick a motel with a pool, but those were few and far between and they were too pricey. I remember one such motel with a pool that he refused to pay $22.00 for. My, how times have changed.
On the trip out west, my brother, who was about ten wanted to stop at every museum we would come to. Mind you, these museums were all the same, they had some arrowheads and other indian stuff and a small gift store with the usual cedar boxes, pelts, and deer antlers.
My dad usually did stop but he never came in with us, just my mom, brother, and me. I think he probably got a cold one out of the cooler at those times.
Kev, my brother also wanted to stop at every fireworks stand, but my dad refused on those.
We saw a lady fall at a cemetery in Deadwood where Wild Bill Hickcock was buried and of course, we laughed and still laugh about that fall.
She was not hurt just embarrassed.
Isn't it funny what the mind remembers?
Another favorite trip of mine was when my dad took us on a driving tour of Lake Superior through Canada.
The first day was so foggy that a parade of cars stayed behind my dad while he led everyone through the pea soup fog. It was not fun and we did not see much of the scenery that day.
We stayed in Thunder Bay.
I always liked a second floor room so that night he chose one of those after looking at it, of course. He always had to lug all the stuff into the room, not sure why, but it was his job, so he lugged all that up to the second floor.
It was only later that we realized that a train ran right behind that motel and on a pretty regular hourly schedule, shaking the whole place.
There was also an incident with KFC for dinner that same night which we always laugh about and which gave my dad a severe hatred of KFC, he never ate it again.
When my girls were growing up, I always knew that I wanted to take family vacations in the summer and not just the kind where you fly somewhere, but rather the kind that I remembered where you drove and saw things along the way.
We did not stop at every museum, no interest in those indian relics and we did stay at motels with pools and we did see the mountains on our trip out west. Oh, and we made all our reservations ahead of time online so John did not look in the rooms.
We spent some vacations up north in a cottage on a lake just like I had done when I was younger.
We traveled out west and we traveled into Canada.
We went to Washington D.C. and Virginia.
We spent time on beaches in Florida and North Carolina.
We did Disneyworld.
We did the UP and the Soo Locks just like we had done with my dad.
So many happy memories of those family vacations.
Now I am trying to give my granddaughters some of those same travel memories which is why we chose the UP of Michigan for our trip this summer and we were so happy that Courtney, Paul, Tiz and Soli could join us.
We stood in the same spots on Mackinac Island as my family had in 1963, as John and I had in 1977 while I was pregnant with Courtney, and in 1989 when John and I visited there with our girls.
A little bit of history repeating itself, old memories being revisited, and new ones being made.
I am already thinking ahead to next year's summer vacation!
