My parents live about 3 hours south of Six Flags Great America (and I live about 3 hours north), so my husband, brother and I are all going to go to Six Flags for the day on a Friday, dive the rest of the way to my parents house at the end of the day, spend the whole day Saturday with them, and drive back Sunday afternoon.
It’s not much of a vacation, but when you’re new at a job and all you can get is a 3-day weekend for a summer vacation, you work with what you’ve got.
My annual week long camping vacation has grown into a “working” vacation that takes up almost all of July! I just got back from the first leg, working First Aid at The Great Blue Heron Music Festival, and tomorrow I’m heading back to Western New York to do First Aid at Sirius Rising and Brushwood’s Summerfest. We’ll be there until the end of the month cleaning, organizing and closing up the shack after the last camper goes home.
The kidlets will only be with me for part of the time this year. The Boy has college classes over the summer semester, so he’s flying out for the big bonfire weekend of Summerfest. The Girl is coming out with us tomorrow and spending a week there before coming back home with her dad.
I just bought my first trailer camper, so it’s hardly “camping” anymore, but it’s still so nice to be out in the fields and forests with the best, most wonderful group of crazy people I’ve been blessed to have in my life!
The 127 km drive between Toronto and Niagara Falls just took 3 and a half hours. The fastest part was when we got off the Queen Elizabeth Way (Was there ever a time when it was not under construction? I can’t remember…) and went up the canal roads and the back roads between St. Catherines, Queenston and Niagara Falls.
Am I the only person who would rather drive 60 km/h on back roads than stop and go on freeways?
At least we’re here and I don’t have to drive for another 48 hours.
I’m packing up the hubby and kids and we’re all headed to Sonoma county in northern California. My folks have a summer house there, right on the Russian River, in a grove of redwoods. It’s also 20 minutes from the ocean. There is a lot to do there, kayaking, swimming, hiking, biking, and just playing in the forest. The kids always have a blast.
Sounds awesome! What time are you picking me up? 
Oh, no. Not at all. Besides, you can only really find cool little diners and Gramma’s Home Cooking kinds of restaurants on back roads! If I even *see *one more Burger King bearing rest stop, I might hork.
Oh my fellow Tusconan, I am leaving in two weeks from today. And I know that no one else but you will understand that I totally off topic mention that the kids and I are having Eegees for dinner tongith, then going to the Crossroads for a dollar movie.
Oh, yeah, see, I will be dead in two weeks, from the oppressive heat and humidity and yet no rain. But you go, have fun. And yes, strawberry/pina colada eegee’s and $1 movies, sounds like heaven right now! We’re going to Sweet Tomatoes for salad and frozen yogurt.
Every summer my wife and I spend 2 months in Vermont doing nothing in a 200 year old farmhouse. It’s the best, most relaxing summer vacation anybody could ever have. We play outside with our dog and lounge around the big backyard drinking beer and barbecuing meat, far away from the hectic big city.
But I must mention it helps that we live here all year, and work at the local high school 10 months a year! Why would we vacation anywhere else? People from Jersey drive 8 hours each way every weekend to experience the way we live all summer. All we have to do is roll out of bed at 11 in the morning to get the same thing.
We have no real desire to go anywhere this summer, the driving long distances and dealing with crowds just doesn’t seem like a vacation for us. Actually, we may go to a few flea markets an hour away. Does that count as a vacation?
I agree with you about getting off the highway when there is traffic. I prefer more cows and fewer exhaust fumes.
I hope you stopped at Lock 3 on the canal and watched a ship sink or rise to the next level. You were ever so close…
We came back along the canal road from Lock 7 to Lock 3 and had the thrill of watching all the bridges go up just ahead of us. We also got to have the windows down all the way, and we were treated to Wild Violet’s Alpaca Boutique, Our Lady of the Scapular, Battlefield House, countless ‘Pick Your Own Cherries’, wineries, Dundurn Castle, etc., etc. One of these days, I’d like to stay at The Inn on the Lock for a couple of mid-week nights and just be a boat geek while playing guitar on the balcony. Plus it looks like it would be great to just bike around the region.
WhyNot - I’m curious to hear how the camper trailer works out for you; it sounds like a good compromise for us between ‘wilderness adventure’ and ‘creature comfort’. I contemplate buying a used boat barely large enough for the four of us for just one summer and going through either the Trent-Severn or the Rideau canals…
Nope. You have to get off the freeways to get a feel for a place. I recently took a day trip to Red Deer, and took the back roads back home - at one point my road petered out so I was practically driving into someone’s driveway, but I saw things I’d never seen before in my 20 years in Alberta, an hour away from my home. I want to go back there and see them again. 
We just yesterday got back from our week aboard the Nathaniel Bowditch. Sailing around Maine was great, but this particular vessel was less than impressive - I would recommend the vacation on one of the others - Mary Daylooks particularly nice, as does Victory Chimes. The scenery was beautiful and I enjoyed the activities, I just wish we’d picked a different boat.
That’s all for my vacation this year, alas… back to work tomorrow.
We’ve already gone on our family vacation this summer. We went to Big Island for 3 days and Maui for 7 days. We just love Hawaii – perfect weather and so much to do.
We’re planning to spend a few weekends at our lake cottage, too. After that it’s a long, dry spell before we can escape again.
I’m spending a month in Iraq. Does that count?
sigh A few weeks ago I had a meeting at Disneyland. My wife came down with me, and we got taken to see the fireworks from good seats, and got passes to go to the parks for the evening. But that is about it for me. My wife and daughter are going to Australia in August, but I get to stay home with the dog and work.
Looking for a job.
I work through the summer, but I get 3 months off from October to January.
In about a week I will leave Virginia and drive up to New England, where, oddly enough, I have never been. (I’ve toured the rest of the United States many times.) As with most of my vacations, this one doesn’t really have much of a plan. The only place where I’m certain that I want to go is the Ben & Jerry’s Factory in Waterford, Vermont. Other than that, I’ll look for opportunities to go hiking, rafting, swimming, and camping, and I’ll stop at any place that looks interesting. Depending on how ambitious I feel, I may cross the border into Canada. And I also plan to sit on a bench that was named in honor of Leonard Cowherd, a former student from my school who was killed in Iraq.
So, yeah, that’s my summer vacation plan.
I LOVE it! We just spent two weeks in it, and it was wonderful. It needs a little work, new propane lines and a new floor, namely, but that will provide my partner and teenaged son with a few weekends of project fun! There’s nothing like a dry, elevated bed and a roof that you don’t worry about leaking while you sleep, and a “campsite” you can leave behind, not needing to pack everything up and into the car when it’s time to leave.
We did have a micro-burst of wind (Didja hear about the tornadoes in New York state this past weekend? That was where we were.) tear off the very worn out canopy, but we’d already strung a tarp over it, knowing the canopy wouldn’t last the season, so it was no big deal at all.