Summer Holiday Meme
The astronomical beginning of summer is June 21, 8:26 A.M. EDT (12:26 UT). Now many folk in my experience have kicked off summer on Memorial Day weekend. Others don't feel it's really summer until the kids are out of school.
Your meme this Monday is about Summer Holidays
What is your earliest memory of a summer holiday? What did you do? Why do you think it was so memorable?
What was your favorite thing to do in the summer as a kid (let's say pre-adolescent. I know all adolescents' favorite thing is to hang out all summer and drive their parent's mad)?
Did you ever get squished into the back of a station wagon (or any vehicle) and hauled on a scenic summer holiday trip? If so, where to, why and did you stop at roadside shacks for fresh fruit or pecan rolls? If not, where would you have liked to go?
Would you or have you subjected your offspring to an equally memorable excursion?
If you were given unlimited holiday funds but had to take a "kitschy" trip to get them - what would you go?
Anything special planned this summer?
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My answers under the cut.
What is your earliest memory of a summer holiday? What did you do? Why do you think it was so memorable?
I'm not sure this is a 'real' memory or one that has been built from my mom's stories and picture albums -- but I remember the summer when Mom, my sister and I lived with Mom's parents because my dad was stationed in Greenland for a year. I remember the back yard at my great grandmother's and all the flowers. I don't really remember much else but there is a picture of me first sitting in a bird bath and then a wading pool in another photo - I'm thinking someone didn't think a bird bath was the right place for a 4 year old to splash about.
What was your favorite thing to do in the summer as a kid (let's say pre-adolescent. I know all adolescents' favorite thing is to hang out all summer and drive their parent's mad)?
Swim. I loved going to the Base Pool. It was most fun when Dad could take us and we'd play great water games and he'd show us dives. He taught me and my siblings to swim while we were still pretty young and fearless and he'd take us all to the pool most every weekend of the summer, if he wasn't on extended duty somewhere else in the world. Later as I got older I was a Red Cross swim instructor and I loved being at the pool every day. Dang, I wish I had one in the back yard right now...sigh.
Did you ever get squished into the back of a station wagon (or any vehicle) and hauled on a scenic summer holiday trip? If so, where to, why and did you stop at roadside shacks for fresh fruit or pecan rolls? If not, where would you have liked to go? I've not only had this done to me, but I've done it to my kids. They got the station wagon treatment. My parents had a sedan with a bench seat in the back for the three kids (me, my sister and my brother). We travelled from Southern California to Toledo, OH the summer before we left for Taiwan (so I was almost 11 then) and we did the same trip after we got home from Taiwan. We went through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio to get there. I don't remember stopping at many roadside stands or pecan rolls. I do remember motels and motel pools. (yeah, I do have a thing about pools)
Would you or have you subjected your offspring to an equally memorable excursion? Yep. But not for as long a distance. One summer I was constantly taking them on day trips - zoos, parks, one weekend we did a 'family retreat' up in a mountain retreat campsite. It was wonderful but the drive was very scary at the end when it was dark and the roads were narrow and twisting and I was driving a Sable Wagon that seemed bigger than a Semi-truck that time of night.
If you were given unlimited holiday funds but had to take a "kitschy" trip to get them - what would you go? I'd start at the Winchester Mystery House, go to the Santa Cruz Mystery Spot, head to Herst Castle (well, it's not so much kitschy as just amazing) The Crystal Palace (Buck Owen's Museum) in Bakersfield, La Brea Tar Pits, Hollywood Walk of Fame and finish off at Venice Beach. By then I'd just be so worn out that I'd want to go home, so all the out of state kitsch would just have to wait for next time.
Anything special planned this summer? Star Trek 40th Anniversary Convention in Las Vegas, World Con IV in Los Angeles, Disneyland, my son's Basic Training Graduation. That's pretty special!
Posted by Dawno at June 19, 2006 07:49 PM