Vacations I Have Known

When I was growing up, my family never took vacations. We went to places that were within a few hours driving time, but never took like a week and actually went someplace. I don't know whether it was because my family didn't have the money or my mom and dad didn't have the patience to take 3 kids somewhere in a car for any length of time. The most we did was spend the day at the amusement park. Finally when I was a junior in high school my parents decided that we were going to Florida. I think it's because we were all old enough to drive and could split driving time(although I never got my driver's license until I was 21. Long story). I do remember my grandparents taking all three kids to Nashville around the time I was 8 or 9 years old. By the time we were on the way home my grandfather was so frustrated with us and it's the only time in my life that I remember him yelling at us.

In 1986 I decided that I wanted to do something different and took out a small loan to go on a cruise. I went alone and had the best time. I could do what I wanted and go where I wanted without 5 different people telling they wanted to do 5 different things. The cruise ship stopped in Nassau(which I really didn't care for), Puerto Rico (which I would definitely do again), and St. Thomas( I learned to snorkel and I can't even swim!). Then I met my first husband and the vacations didn't happen. There was never any money. He liked to drink on his vacations which he took a lot. After my divorce I made up for the lost vacations. I loved to take off and just go somewhere if I had the money. When I met J he had never been on any vacations either. We have made up for that in the almost 7 years we've been together.

We went to Asheville, North Carolina on our honeymoon and toured the Biltmore home. We loved it so much that we went back last year. With my parents! lol

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For our first anniversary we went to Niagara Falls. It's one of the most breath taking things that you could ever see. Again, we loved it so much we took the kids 2 years later








This year we are going to Frankenmuth, Michigan. With the economy so bad and we just had to put some money into the house we decided not to go too far this year. I think we are going on Tuesday, but no definite plans have been made yet.
So, here's a list of places that I have been:
Florida - 2 times
Nashville - 3 times
Myrtle Beach - I lost count
Oklahoma
Las Vegas
Detroit- a few times
Missouri- 2 times
West Virginia - numerous times, my ex husband's family lived there
Syracuse, New York
Corning, New York
The Poconos
North Carolina - 3 or 4 times
Niagara Falls (Canadian) 2 times
Ontario (for like 5 minutes, we got sent back over the border, two guys my friend and I was with was Australian and they didn't have their passports)
Places I want to go
Grand Canyon
Hawaii
Pacific Coast
Paris (this one is a long shot)
Alaska
New England in the fall
I'm sure there will be many more places that I'm going to want to go. But for now I'm content to do what we can afford.
Tomorrow is our wedding anniversary. We are going out tonight since tomorrow is Homecoming for B. We are still undecided where we want to go to eat. I want something different. I have all day to figure it out though.