And are you a BIG CITY VACATION (shows and museums and sight seeing) person or a GIVE ME A CHAIR ON THE BEACH VACATION person?!
Thanks!
Z
Monday, July 8, 2013
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110 comments:
What's a "vacation"?
Mr. AOW and I have had two wonderful vacations:
1. Hawaii (mostly Maui) in 1983.
3. Warren's place in 2007.
Upcoming for us this summer and a gift from a generous homeschool family: One free week at one of the Diamond Resorts. Fully accessible to wheelchairs!
Oh, and I also loved the cemetery tours of the Hollywood stars of yesteryear. I did this on my own before there were companies to conduct the tours and before there was Internet to make the research easier!
Z - My best vacations are the ones we spent in southern Germany. Since Mr. Sue was stationed there twice - we would take vactions there and family would come over and visit. So some places we went more than once.
The Black Forset, the mountains, Salzburg and other places in the south were so memorable.
Forest - that is.
We have had so many nice vacations, I can't really pick one. But, you will appreciate the trip we took by car to Mackinac Island Michigan where the movie Somewhere In Time was filmed.
The movie stared Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour.
Hubby and I drove from Tennessee to Michigan, took the ferry to Mackinac where no motorized vehicles are allowed, spent three days there, then took the ferry back to the mainland.
Then we drove across the border to Canada, drove across Canada to Niagara Falls. Stayed there on the Canadian side, then drove across to the US side and spent a couple of days, then drove back to Tennessee. Two weeks and it was all wonderful.
Debbie
Right Truth
http://www.righttruth.typepad.com
So far my best vacation was Panama. I loved having breakfast surrounded by little monkeys. And visiting the coffee region was great. Panama has one of the best and most expensive coffee in the world ($40 / lb at the time) and I had a cup of coffee in Boquette that was mind blowing. It was an experience similar to drinking an amazing wine. Also had one of best meals of my life there with amazing meat.
Back in the day I spent a couple months bumming in Eastern Europe.
Got to Prague before it was cool to go to Prague.
Watched the Vopos walk off with my passport.
Got told by this guy carrying a submachine gun at the Czech/Hungarian border that my papers weren't in order. Slight misunderstanding on currency exchange.
Really liked Poland and the arts in Budapest.
Tuscany! The air smelled sweet like jasmine, the fresh fruit tasted amazing, and the landscape looked like a painting from a dream. Each meal was a three hour experience.
We did visit Florence, and see the Uffizi and The Academia, but my favorite thing was having a delicious lunch then taking a nap.
FrogBurger, you love your coffee, eh? I laughed so hard when I saw signs on the highways in Italy with an espresso cup, exit in 10 kilometers!!
My brother CnC and I along with our sister and her tow adult kids just returned from Italy again. Tis was my second trip, CnC's first. Amazingly it was again an absolutely perfect vacation.
We flew into Venice for three nights, stayed at an olive agriturismo on Volterra Tuscany with the most amazing view and food along with a cooking class showing us how easy it is to make our own fresh pasta (if I could only find semolina flour and 00 flour here in Indy).
One of the best afternoons was sitting on the patio with Marinella, the owner and hearing her amazing life story.
Then it was on to Manarola, one of the cinque of Cinque Terre where we were surprised once again by my "nephew" from India.
Our last day there Mark and I hiked the upper trail from Corniglia to Manarola. It took us four hours to hike the straight up the mountain and then down the other side on a 6 kilometer hike.
We both blogged about it last week in our He Said, She Said series.
Then we went on to Rome, staying at a B&B right at the top of the Spanish Steps. Anna, the owner is originally from PA and married a furrier years ago and owned a dress shop before "retiring" by opening her gorgeous home as a private B&B.
Jennifer, you are right about the smells. Last time we went mid-April and this time, although they were having a late spring, every single place smelled like lilac.
A month with mother and two cousins in 1947 on the North Shore of Eastern Long Island at a venerable white victorian tourist home with green shutters, red geraniums in the window boxes, green-and-white-striped awnings on the windows, a wraparound porch filled with old wicker furniture covered in faded rose chintz, a sundial in a circle in the middle of the front lawn, surrounded by cannas, and a wonderful, neglected fishpond in the back filled with goldfish -- and pollywogs.
We cooked breakfast on the beach at sunrise each morning in the old cast-iron skillet -- eggs and bacon right on the beach. Swam in shallows. collected starfish clinging to the rocks, and tiny fiddler crabs scuttling along the beach.
Sometimes we climbed to the top of the bluff behind us, and picked the wild blackberries that grew near the edge of a potato field up there.
Among other things we ate locally caught clams and lobsters in either of two great seafood restaurants for dinner. Or we might cooked burgers and franks just before sundown at the beach.
Movies on rainy days -- Betty Grable, Esther Williams and Betty Hutton were all the rage, and how we loved their silly gaudy musicals!
Although I've been everywhere, enjoyed life immensely, and have no regrets, looking back I realize with a pang of bittersweet emotion that there will never be another time to equal the sheer heavenly joy of those few weeks in that innocent summer of 1947.
Wow FT. I want to go back there with you. Being born and raised in landlocked Indiana I can't imagine spending a lot of time enjoying the ocean. Especially the fresh seafood.
Here, we have to spend an arm and a leg to get decent seafood.
FrogBurger, you love your coffee, eh?
I have to prevent myself from drinking too many cups a day. But that's more of an oral addiction than a love of coffee. I do enjoy good coffee, though. We have the Nespresso machine and it's quite nice to have a couple of tasty espresso (espressi?) a day.
My wife who had a hard time with espresso at first can't drink drip coffee anymore after our trip to Paris.
Best vacation.... out in the Gulf of Mexico, 50 miles south of Pensacola... reeling in red snapper and ling all day long... best fish fry evah.
Z, I've always been poor. I can't say I've ever had a "vacation".
Once my friend and I, when we were 18, living in a rathole apartment on the North Side of Pittsburgh were walking the streets one night, a little high, and bored to tears. We had 9 bucks between us and on a tear, at midnight on the Ohio River Blvd, near the McKees Rocks Bridge, decided we'd hitch hike as far as we could on 4.50, then turn around and come back home.
We ended up in Detroit for 3 days.
Man, we had some interesting folks picking us up. I remember a dude who said he was a Scout Master(douubt it but..) who claimed to be on a scavenger hunt and one of the items was worn socks. He paid us 10 bucks a piece for the socks we were wearing plus gave us new socks besides. It was a deal. We'd been through some rain up to that point and both my shoes and socks had holes in them and they were gamey. I appreciated the new socks. Heck I'd have traded him even.
Once we were in Detroit, a coupla African-Americans picked us up on Telegraph Rd in a drop top Eldorado. They were smoking weed and offered us some to which we partook. They were talking Jive the whole way and we never understood a word they said. Word.
Coming back some folks helped us get on to the proper on ramp headed for Pittsburgh (instead of the wrong opposite way) and we appreciated that. Folks were nicer in those days.
I guess this was my best vacation...
Right Truth. Somewhere in Time. I Loved that movie.
@Rita:
"Here, we have to spend an arm and a leg to get decent seafood."
Rita...that's everywhere maam...everywhere.
I live 1/2 mile from the Atlantic...and I still pay $29 a pound for Grouper....a native fish that probably lives a mile from me...in the waters of course. How could that be?
$20 a pound for a few Sea scallops...and $39 a pound for snapper, dolphin or Tuna????
Kid: I was driving back to Ypsi from Chattanooga, sorta racing a Vette with Michigan tags. When I realized we were on 40 East from Knoxville, I pulled him over to and told him we were going the wrong way. He was a big nlack guy and was a little tense when he got out of he car. Until I told him we were headed to Virginia.
We stopped for coffee. I told him I wanted to pick up a hitcher who could drive.
On the on ramp, he slowed down so I'd see this kid in a blanket on the side and took off.
He got in and after awhile imasked if he coukd drive and he said yes.
An hour later I woke up and we were doing 140 in Ohio. I told him it was his license.
He said he didn't have one.
He said not to worry, he slowed down and we passed a trooper under a bridge.
He did that two more times.
I asked how he knew.
He said he worked 6 mos and hitched 6 every year. Wherever.
He was just as pleased to go to Michigan as anywhere else.
I dropped him off in Romulus at his folks house.
A few miles out of my way but I couldn't resist.
@Ed..
Now that cracked me up...for awhile I was going to give the prize to Kid....but that one takes the cake. Either you were plain crazy....or you were plain crazy!
Imp.
$15.99 a pound at Beach Market on the bay on Fort Myers for red grouper and $16.99 for black grouper.
You live on the wrong side of the peninsula man. Come visit us poor folk on the gulf next winter when we finally (hopefully) rid ourselves of those nasty Indiana winters for three months.
Ed, That's a Great story. I've known people capable of such things with no license, so I don't doubt it a bit. Thanks for the story. That speaks America.
Imp, Should I add the women who picked us up to the story?
Kid and Ed!!! I love those stories.
@Kid.
Go man.,..spice it up...add some heat...some flavor...
@Rita...
You're on.
"Poor Folk"...Naples and Sarasota? Just wondering if I can trust all the mid westerners who've managed to capture the entire West coast of FlaDuh by simply getting lost on I75!
Ummm...yup. Must be better than all the creepy New Yakkers who've killed the East coast.
FB, have you ever had caffe corretto? I can't handle espresso unless I add sugar or grappa.
Jen, that sounds good. I get my Nespresso black but if I had a super shot espresso, I may add a bit of sugar.
WONDERFUL stories! Thanks, guys!
I can't figure my best vacation; I don't do them often but living in Paris and visiting SO many European cities with Mr. Z had to be the high points...Melbourne, Sydney, Budapest, Athens, Madrid, Amsterdam, Rome, Vienna, most of Germany and France, ...
OH! I know. Mr. Z and I spent our 10th anniversary near Cannes...no business, just fun....wonderful.
And a week on a Greek island called Samos at the home of friends...nothing to do but walk in olive tree orchards, see the ocean from the house, long walks, great eating...that was a special time.
The wife and I took a cruise to the Bahammas, St Thomas and St Maartin this spring. Best vacatio never.
FROM Z AT WORK:
Thanks for coming by, Joe..that sounds like a fabulous vacation!
IMP, Ok, I'll just inject one episode along the way where an absolutely gorgeous woman picked us up at the north-western end of Ohio. I was in front, my buddy in back. I slept most of the way to the first rest stop we stopped at. He told me she was eyeing him constantly in the rear view so we should switch places for the continuation of he ride. We were 19, she was probably 30-35. SO when we got back in I knew the plot so I laid down completely in the back seat and pretended to sleep.
I could hear them interacting lightly with each other as she drove the interstate and before too long we came to another rest stop. She pulled in and the two of them had an awfully good time while I snored away.
-the end.
@Kid...
Gedoudda here!! BadaBing...A Cougar that far back??
Come-on...tell me..ya peeked yes?
Just once..:) for several minutes
Ok...sorry for being late to this story.
I have to say it's hard for me to choose just one. I've been really fortunate to have had many over the years.
My wife and I ( BK...before kid ) used to hop a flight to New Orleans about once a moth for a weekend. Hell...it's an hour away from Miami. That's when it was pretty "safe". But NO always came with risk for tourists. But we stuck to the hustle and jive of the Old Quarter, B&B'd our stay and went for the food, drinks and Bourbon Street. And it's a photographers paradise.
But our best one above all else...was a trip to Alaska via White Horse in the Yukon. Where we rented a 30' RV for a month of one hell of a road trip.
Drive it all around Alaska...camped out below Denali where it snowed 10" on August 25th! Paid $30 for a small pizza at one of the road houses which were about 150 miles apart. ( Everyhting costs more in Alaska. )
We waited 3 days for the weather to clear so we could even see Denali! Then a boat to Glacier Bay which took all night from Juneau. Killer whales trailing us....camping out on the rocky beach with a huge bon fire...fishing ( trolling with lures only ) for salmon everyday...and bagged 150 pounds which Air Alaska packed and shipped for us back to NJ...where we poached it...smoked it...fried it...baked it...and ate it.
One of the best times of out lives. 18 hours of daylight...the state fair in Palmer...and just "roughing" it.
@Kid...
Yea...you crack me up...did you learn anything of value...LMAO!
Oh...and I forgot....following the Alaska pipeline for miles and miles...the wonderful Northern lights....huge produce ( with that much daylight they grow to ginormous size! ) And the calving of the glaciers.
Unbelievable.
Imp, "Learn anything?" Everyday baby...never stops.
IMP, I'd say there is nothing more majestic, inspiring and awesome than raw nature on the big scale.
That sounds like a great time. We have some plans to do some RV-ing when we retire. I'll blog it.
@Kid..
"I'd say there is nothing more majestic, inspiring and awesome than raw nature on the big scale.."
You can say that again. I've never understood why anyone would forsake a trip in this country for one to gaze at the itty bitty Matterhorn.
Man...Denali is 28,000' above seal level I think. Try driving up to Pikes Peak in the Rockies with a carbureted van..LOL.
Then camp out at a "Dude" ranch called the R Lazy S in Jackson Hole Wyoming...my second favorite vacay of all time too.
On a horse most days...fly fishing for a trout breakfast or dinner on the Snake River. The awesome majesty of the Tetons everywhere.
Family eating...no TV..NO Radio....People and quiet...and nature. The sound of the leaves rustling in the wind...and they flutter like diamonds in every color.
Then go by horseback "downtown" with a wrangler to park them at the Silver Dollar Saloon. Get zonked on Jack Daniles shooters....then tell the horse to take you home. And you can depend on the horse too.
Never wanted to leave there either.
Poetry IMP. And MOST people will never know such things. How can you love America if you don't know what it is ? Another facet of the problem. Some people live their whole life in a neighborhood in Chicago.
I'll tell you what. I spent 20 years in Arizona and saw one heck of a lot of it and didn't see much of it either...:)
@Kid...
Well said friend...well said. If they saw what she really looks like...maybe they'd love her more.
I've been to every state cept Hawaii....cause it ain't connected to the rest of us....and never will be. Just a pretty welfare island. Word.
Imp and Kid. You boys need to get a room. :-)
@Rita...
We thought we had one lady...no one else is here cept me and kid. And I left you a loose reply yesterday....you coming back to make fun of us east coasters??? ;-)
Rita, Let's ALL (all of us) go get a room. Spouses and all. Caesars Palace, Las Vegas. (Or something cheaper) Drink, Gamble, House Boating on Lake Mead, Hoover Dam tour. Kick it around some. All platonic but of course Mademoiselle.
Idle threat from me though. I can't get a way anytime soon.
Might be a hoot though.
@Rita...
Come on...ya know you love us...LOL
Kid and me....Like Mutt and Jeff...Lucy and Ricky...George and Gracie...Abbott and Costello...Amos and Andy...ya know. He's my BFF.
IMP, Now I'm blushing. If that's possible.
@Kid..
Glad you clarified that bud.
Bud's the short stop, clarified is on 3rd base.
@Kid..
If you didn't blush at taking a peek at your bud in the front seat with that Cougar...you never will.
I think Rita got a room and we're not invited. Heh.
@Kid
And who's on first? I'm at home.
IMP, I stopped blushing at 9, after I got the good whacking over the lap of the hot Nun in 3rd grade.
@Kid...
Rita's a class act...I know cause she's on the "real" side of FlaDuh..
I'm on first. I was promised.
@Kid..
ahhh..as an old altar boy...I still remember Sister Campion.
Who I later learned quit the nunnery and is on the loose.
Do you believe *I* was a choir boy during my initial 8 years of formal education at a Catholic school?
Now, THAT was a long time ago.
Damn boys. (Sorry Z). You are out of control.
A girl runs off for a sec and you leave her in the dust.
PS - Sister Marie Christie (one of my first crushes) also left the Nunnery soon after teaching us in 3rd grade.
@Kid...
I can't imagine that BF...but with your quick retorts...I'm not surprised that you put your vocals to better use!
Rita, You have the stage. I will shut up now.
@Kid
"(one of my first crushes)"
....I'll have to tell ya about Sister Campion in an email.../sigh
@Rita...
Stop watching the show...you're on now!
Kid.
The house boats on Lake Mead sounds like my style.
And Imp, remember I live in the boring Midwest. I'm just poor enough to have a place on the lowlife side of FloRita.
@Rita.
"The house boats on Lake Mead sounds like my style."
And Lake Lanier in Georgia on a houseboat will suite me fine...as soon as they get water back into it.
Rita, a plan might be coming together.
No stress tho, not happening that soon.
@Rita..
"Boring midwest..."
Well then...we should all do what Kid suggests....get a well attended bash going in...Kentucky??? LOL
Well all I can say is you easterners certainly had different kids of nuns than my poor siblings did back in the early 60's.
From the stories they tells the nuns were mean, racists and loved to bloody knuckles with the metal edges of rulers.
Thank GOD my siblings were tossed out of Catholic School by a greedy Priest before I was subjected to the abuse.
Those KYers like their sisters a little too much for my blood Imp.
At least that's what we Hoosiers claim.
:-)
And I'm not referring to the religious kind of sisters.
@Rita:
"certainly had different kids of nuns than my poor siblings did back in the early 60's."...
Ya know that Beach Boys song..."Well East Coast girls are hip...I really...dig those styles they wear". But the west coast...and so forth.
The East coast nuns wanted to hide out from the pressures of having to really work at a full time job. Most of the ones I knew in the 60's are back in the stream...
Matter of fact..I'm told that two of them showed up at my Class Reunion on June 22.
@Rita..
"Those KYers"
Ummmmmm....Huh?
@Rita...
I'm getting slow..I.'m on my third...errrr...medication!!!
@Kid...
Hey ABBOTT>>>Help!
Google abbreviation for Kentucky Imp.
KY.
Maybe you need a fourth dose of ...... Medicine you lightweight.
Kid's still on first.
@Rita..
Little secret...I never knew greedy priests. fact is...I was going / heading to be one.
My Uncle Joe is a Jesuit...cool cat..smart and hip too.He was a definite role model for me.
IMP, Calm down there friend. Keep the deflectors on, watch the warp containment and the NA cells from overheating. Let the force be with you and maintain the glide path.
Rita, Sister M C was the ONLY hot nun at our grade school. The others were torture experts and oldsters ripe for torturing by rolling bb's down the chalk lanes on the black board and letting them try to figure out where they came from.
Yes, we were were mean, God forgive me Please.
@Rita..
"Google abbreviation for Kentucky Imp.
KY. "
OMG Rita...I'm so embarassed....sheesh. Ummmm Ohio or Indiania then?
@Kid..
"IMP, Calm down there friend.."
Whadda ya talking about BF?
Attention Ms. Z..we've hijacked this thread.
@Kid..
"maintain the glide path..."
Ahhhhh...my language.
The story goes Imp that in 1965m the year before I started first grade, the local priest called my mom and told her we were giving enough to the church.
My dad was a mechanic, we didn't have a whole heck of a lot of money, especially if you consider they were already paying tuition for three kids to attend Catholic school.
When my mo explained they simply couldn't afford to give the church even more money than the tuition, he said. "I guess your kids won't be going to school here next year. ".
They were paying the tuition, he wanted more that they imply didn't have.
So she called up the local school and then called Father Monster back and told him he was right, her kids wouldn't be going to school there.
I lucked out.
IMP, calming own was no offense intended. Only offered if over-medication was in play. I'm actually getting a little hinkey myself here, so it was obviously an over-reaction. A Thousand Pardons.
@Kid..
"he ONLY hot nun at our grade school.."
Hell with that...I'm talking High School...where as a Catholic kid....the hormones were running rampant and basically out of control..That's why the nuns beat us up...they knew!
@Kid..
"A Thousand Pardons.."
Stop that I mis counted....I'm on my second...empty stomach...LOL
Rita, Imp. I will offer that All the nuns were overly upset when Father Zcarnickey was transferred to another parish.
IMP, I was switched on at 7, Sears Catelogs by 8, Playboy by 9, Interaction at 10 with some neighborhood girls down by the railroad tracks (not the Diana Ross Happening) Neighbor kids Aunt at 11, and our "clubhouse" from 8 to 14 was in the basement of a cathouse.
Though I remained virtuous until I was 18.
Well I need the backstory on Father Z then.
I still remember being extremely embarrassed by my flirtatious ex MIL whenever she saw a priest. My God, I swear the woman would have taken him in the restaurant if he had let her.
Rita, 'No wonder they beat you." It's what we wanted of course.
Somehow Z's thread on vacations turned into Imp's and Kid's hormonal fantasies.
Ooops.
G'nite boys.
@Rita..
"the local priest called my mom and told her we were ( NOT?) giving enough to the church."
Yup...I know that well Rita...and I know it was common too. We were told the same thing, however in Church...on a Sunday..in the pews...they would read aloud the names of the best donors to the least among us.
It was...indeed....humiliating to know that we were in the $5 bucks a month...compared to others who gave 4 times more.
It was all part of the guilt trip they played on us.
When I was a Senior...I got pissed off and tired of having my lunch money sucked out of my pocket to feed the 'poor starving kids" in...ummm.....Africa.
So..one day I packed the envelope with Monopoly money. Sister froggy opened the envelope and said....Mister IMP....what is this?
I said...pack it in Sister....that's all I've got...no more.
She came down with her wooden pointer to smack me....I put up my arm...and she broke hers.
My peers....claimed shock...but they loved it.
Rita, Father Z was certainly good looking we thought. Sort of a cross between Walter Matthau and Jack Lemon.
I was not aware of Anything happening and nothing even occurred to me/us until it was announced he was leaving and we also noticed the reaction by the nuns.
That's all I know really.
Sounds like we three need to have our own blog posts about the good bad and the ugly of being raised Catholic.
I don't know if they bugged my folks for money, but we always seemed to have folding cardboard things for the March of Dimes, or some other donation entity and were always stuffing change into these things to bring back to school when they were filled.
@Rita...
Thanks Rita...G'Night lady.
You're right...we did hijack Z's thread...blog...alll of it..
But...it was fun.
@Rita..
"Sounds like we three need to have our own blog posts.."
Oofff....good idea? I dunno Rita. Some serious bad juju in there.
Rita, Interesting idea but I don't have much more to tell.
To tell you the truth, I remember what we got there was pure education while in the classroom - patriotic, conservative - capitalistic education.
I'm willing to be I got more in 3 years there than kids today get in 8.
Hijacking a thread is sometimes nothing more than good friends and the natural flow of conversations.
Albeit this one took a very unexpected turn.
@Kid...
That's the long and short of it...Ditto.
@Rita...
Wow...you're amazing. And you alwys have great stuff....this wasn't a "hijack"...it was our own temporary forum.
Lot's in common.
@Rita.
"Albeit this one took a very unexpected turn..."
It did indeed...and an interesting one.
Skype anyone...LOL
Nothing wrong with telling the good and the bad.
I had much less exposure to being raised Catholic than my siblings. I remember telling my mom I wanted a King James Version (oh heaven forbid) of a bible at 15.
I still am very protective of the Catholic Church but had very fundamental differences in the grace versus works thing even back when a was a teen.
@Rita...
Very true.
My poor sister followed me by tow years...I left a wake in my path that they tortured my sister with.
My brother and I escaped intact....and really pissed them of...circa 1965.
Yo....
I'm outa here Buds....till tomorrow..."Happy trails to you...until..."
Oh man. I'm toast...LOL
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