Then and Now: Vacations

I have a unique “memory” (as the term is used to describe the ability to remember things).  You know those kid’s games where the tiles lay face down and you have to collect pairs by remembering where they are in the array?  Yeah, I’m positively terrible at those.  But I can tell you which swimsuit I was wearing, what the sunscreen smelled like, and who was singing on the radio while I was playing at the beach on vacation the summer that I was 9 years old.  

Some events - some whole MONTHS even - are lost in a fog.  The first half of a year that we lived in Ohio are completely lost to me, because I was physically displaced and still getting up several times a night with my 6-month-old, and really just “surviving” day-to-day.  I have zero recollection of my oldest nephew’s birthday party, which happened during that time, despite there being photo-graphic evidence of my attendance.  And certain memories that I dislike I have managed to bury deep enough that they are all but dead.  But then there are moments like that one from the beach - and very, very many others - that, even in their lack of grandeur, continue to thrive in the recesses of my mind with unparalleled clarity.  

Now that I am a middle-aged adult, I’ve found that those little gems have proved themselves quite useful in a fun new way: compare and contrast.  You see, I have the ability to line those tid-bits from my childhood up next to the parenting side of similar experiences currently being lived by my own children, and enjoy the similarities and differences between TWO points of view - both mine - of (basically) the same events.  Events like Christmas morning, learning to drive, catching a pop-fly to the outfield, band concerts, failing a test, decorating for the holidays, running through the sprinkler, baking cookies...  I can reflect on what it was like for kid-me,  and better put myself in my daughters’ shoes, while appreciating what my parents went through to make life happen for me as a kid.  This is sometimes rather enlightening, often funny, and always helpful when it comes to empathizing and bonding with my girls.  Today I am going to share one of these Then-and-Now experiences with you: vacation. 

Vacation was always right up there with Christmas for favorite times of the year, to kid-me.  For adult-me, it’s now solidly in the #1 spot.  I should mention that there are some differences in our family vacations now from the ones I grew up enjoying, but there are far more similarities.  Packing, driving, exploring, spending the days on the beach and the nights around the campfire, sleeping in a place - and sandy bed - that was not your own, rainy day board games and the sorrow of saying good-bye, to name a few.  There was, and is, nothing like family vacation.  

I remember being excited, when I was a kid, for weeks before-hand.  I simply could not understand why packing took so long, and why we couldn’t just “go early.”  What were we waiting for, anyway?  “I only took 7 vacation days off,” meant nothing to me as a child.  “We need to make sure to pack enough clothes” sounded to me like “laundry is overrated”, and “You don’t want to stay in a dirty camper, do you?” was a positively ridiculous question to ask someone who was perfectly fine with being buried to the neck in sand.  

Alas, my parents always insisted on a good week or two of preparation, a.k.a. Torture.  They would pull the camper trailer out of the polebarn and park it up by the garage.  Mom would bustle around in there for endless hours, cleaning and packing and otherwise “getting ready for vacation” every night after work, while I impatiently counted down the days until we could actually leave.  I think I learned how to use a calendar just because I knew I had to wait until the magical “Wednesday” when we could finally load up and GO!  

Then there was the drive.  Two and half hours didn’t seem like very much until you were strapped in a seat destined for your favorite place on earth: the lake.  In that scenario, it seemed like several sunlit days.

Once we finally arrived at the campground there was more fussing over “setting up camp” and all the while I would be running around in my swimsuit, pestering them about the beach.  They would unfurl the awning and roll out the fake grass-carpet, and set out chairs...  I would eventually wander off to explore the campground.  

I remember all of the sounds and smells of the place.  There was always a long row of big, fancy RV’s in the “seasonal” section, elaborately furnished inside and out to give their occupants a luxurious getaway for the whole of the summer.  Some of them even had little flower beds, and fences around the sites.  Then there were the sprawling tent communities where a half dozen families would rent as many lots and cover them all with tents of various sizes so thick that there was no telling where one lot ended and the other began, or whose kids or dogs were whose.  One of our favorite sites had a huge tree at the corner, carved up with so many initials that you could barely tell if the bark was supposed to be rough or smooth except down by the roots, which gnarled their way across the sand, and were so fat and twisted that whole little puddles could get caught in them. 

I remember dragging my family to the sandy swimming hole as early as I could every day, and spending countless hours chasing fish, mastering underwater hand-stands, building sand-castles and playing on the giant inner-tubes of bus wheels that were our inflatables.  I would be so exhausted when my parents herded us back to the camper that I hardly minded the freezing cold shower in the dimly lit concrete camp-bathroom, with peeling paint and spiders enjoying their moth-y dinners in every corner.  I remember hotdogs over the campfire, and learning how to “roast” the perfect marshmallow: toasted crispy brown on the outside, melted gooey warm on the inside.  I remember the sounds of the campground around us, all doing the same thing, and falling asleep in a rickety lawn chair to the lullaby of laughter and acoustic guitars accompanying the crickets.  Even sandy sheets didn’t bother a kid who had spent the whole day swimming and fishing.  I remember thinking that it was a little stuffy, sleeping so near to everyone else in the same tiny camper.  My brother’s “bunk” was so close I could smack him in his sleep, and sometimes did.  Eventually my claustrophobia drove me out to sleep in a tent, which I loved, and did from that day forward on all of our vacations.    

I remember a midweek laundry day that meant hauling bags and baskets of wet, sandy laundry to the laundromat in town, and “wasting” an entire half of a day just so we could wear clean clothes.  Rainy days were a bit of a let-down, but sometimes I could still manage to persuade dad to go fishing.  If not, we killed the drizzly time by repeatedly playing the three games that lived in the camper: Rack-o, Life, and Uno.  At one point Old Maid got added to that stash and Diver Dan and Postman Pete were always my favorites, because there were animals on those cards.  Diver Dan had found an octopus, and Postman Pete was being playfully attacked by a puppy.  As soon as the sun dared to peek out we’d shove the games aside and charge back down to the beach again, rolling our inner-tubes along ahead of us, bouncing them over roots and rocks until they hit the sand and then splashed into the water.

Days would bleed together, and the week and half we had there would pass impossibly fast.  Before I knew it we were “packing up” to go home.  I hated that part.  Sometimes I cried.  For once I was glad that packing took as long as it did.  I’d say good-bye to the lake and the campground and camp-store, and the gnarly tree and my favorite of the rocks ringing the firepit.  Then we’d drive (though I usually slept the whole way) home and go back to “boring” life.  Mom would spend another week’s worth of evenings cleaning out the camper again, only this time I didn’t go in there much, because it felt like visiting a funeral parlor.  Vacation was done and gone for another whole year.  

It would take a solid 24 hours simply to adjust to being back at home, and another couple of days to rid the sand from all of its hiding places.  But then, by the end of the third day back (and still long before mom had finished cleaning out the camper and unpacking) vacation thoughts had been replaced by back-to-school thoughts, and the excitement and anxieties of reuniting with friends and classmates that I hadn’t seen or heard from all summer.  Vacation was gone.

But the memories of it weren’t, thankfully.  They remain, as fresh as ever.

We just got back from our annual family vacation a little over a week ago.  We are blessed enough to be able to take two full weeks in a rented cabin, 7 1/2 hours away from home in the woods near Lake Michigan.  It’s rustic and beautiful, and we all love it immeasurably, in spite of a higher number of indoor “interactive nature moments” than we are used to at our own house.  (Note: pack spider spray next year.)

Like my mother, I spend as much time as we have for vacation just packing for the trip.  I might not have to clean a camper, but I have to fit all of the daily necessities, plus the “fun stuff”, for six people (five of whom are female) and a large-ish dog into a rooftop cargo carrier and the back of a Honda Odyssey.  

That is a task.  😅

My kids have three times as long of a drive as I did, but they also have AC and smartphones, so… 

These days, when we arrive, the first order of business for me is always unpacking and settling in; but for the kids it’s exploring the cabin and the woods.  Now I get why my mom always took so long.  Making sure that the coffee pot is in working order is critical to our survival, as far as I’m concerned.  The girls all share a single, large, loft-room with five beds and a handful of dressers that have to be claimed.  Someone generally tests the echo in the forest pretty early on in the trip, as well.  Then when we’re (I’m) ready, we head to the shore.  We spend most of our days at the beach.  

Despite my best efforts we sleep in sandy sheets every night.  When it rains we play games as a family, though I would argue that our selection is better.  We make a point to buy a new game for vacation each year and we have an impressive collection now.  Next year we might need to get real(ish) poker chips, though.  Cheerios have a way of going “missing” when we play before dinner.  

We cook several meals over the campfire while we’re there.  I am still the undefeated marshmallow master.  Also, I highly recommend the chocolate chip cookie s’more. 🤤

We do a lot less fishing and significantly more shopping than I ever did on vacation.  I’m okay with that, for the most part.  I do miss fishing sometimes, but I won’t turn down a stroll through the shops on a sunny afternoon, or a clear evening.  

We are all sad to leave, dog included.  Between the swimming and the digging there is no happier place for her.  She was born for the beach, I think.  

There are always a few tears before they nod off, and sleep away the hours on the road home.  Many of those seven and a half hours are silent in the back as we head south.  😴

Home Sweet Ho- oooooly cow that’s a lot of unpacking.  😫

History repeats itself, and long after they have made their school-shopping lists and printed their schedules, I am still unpacking and cleaning… (Why is it that a 14 day trip takes 2 weeks to pack for and about 97 days to recover from?!)  There is still sand in my van slider-doors.  It lives there now, I think.  

Like so many other moments in life, vacation goes by way too quickly, and proves to me afresh that the more things change, the more they stay the same.  Nowadays adult-me does have an appreciation for the finer pleasures; like sand-free food, a hot shower, and clean sheets.  But my kids are still under the impression that the only good hotdog is a “crunchy” one, lake water is never too cold for swimming, and they don’t seem to notice the exfoliation they’re getting in their gritty beds.  And that’s fine with me.  

The child and the mom in me agree on this: at the end of the day, almost all of my favorite moments in life are the ones where we can unplug, relax, joke with one another and just enjoy God’s handwork with the time we have together.  I think that’s what I loved about vacations as a kid, and I know it’s what I love about them now.