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You Don’t Say: Now all I have to do is get the kids on board

I’m so jealous of people who have, for decades — some their entire lives — engaged in the same summertime ritual: first week in July, pack up the car and kids and putter off down the road to the rented beach house or mountain place for a week or two. Those of more substantial means often stayed through Labor Day weekend.

I say more substantial, but mind you, I’m talking about things once affordable to most middle-class families. Shucks, some of my acquaintances’ families of relatively modest means even managed to build beach cottages which are still in use today. The closest my own family ever came to such was a couple of summers spent in a mildewy little concrete block beach cottage with perpetually sweaty walls, gritty terrazzo floors and no air conditioning.

With all the traveling we did moving, Mom and Dad usually weren’t up for much more than a long weekend camping trip. Actually, taking a planned vacation didn’t really take hold of my imagination until I was out on my own and holding down a full-time job. The idea of getting an entire week off from work, and getting paid for it, was somehow all the carrot needed to get me through a year of mindless labor. And, if you can believe it, I was promised I’d get two weeks paid vacation the following year … theoretically.

Those carefree days of leisure, out from under the oppressive yoke of the daily grind of get up, go to work, come home, go to bed, get up … was like pure oxygen. If even for just a single solitary week, it was sufficient to reenergize me. That was the youthful me. The older, somewhat wiser, and considerably more stressed-out me needed considerably more time off.

Early on, those vacation weeks were typically spent on the road driving to visit family. When you live a full day’s drive apart, and therefore don’t have occasion to see each other often, it’s important to make the effort. Always cognizant of that old Poor Richard admonition regarding company and fish, we usually planned to only stay a few days, so sometimes detours would be made along the way. Depending on our finances, a night or two might be spent in motels, or camping in the mountains. In later years, when I’d finally earned that much-coveted two weeks — and was actually allowed to take them consecutively — the idea of venturing a bit further afield on longer road trips to places far more interesting, and inviting, than Mom and Dad’s guest room were planned.

In mid-life, along with all the trappings of moderate success, came the opportunity for some extended time off. That opened the door to the idea of running off back to Europe to revisit places I’d lived and traveled as a teen and young 20-something. More trips to more exotic spots to see what the folks there were up to ensued. My last overseas trip was to the UK in 2016, the year before my partner Beverly, passed. She had found some previously unknown family members through Ancestry.com who lived up in the Lake District. We stayed in an interesting old tourist hotel and enjoyed an absolutely wonderful visit touring around that scenic area, as well as the Yorkshire Downs.

Since that time, I seem to be reliving some of my past travel itineraries, but in reverse. I’m back to running up and down the interstates to visit with family! Sometimes I drive straight through, and sometimes I’ll stop for the night at a hotel along the way. Despite having legitimately earned my stripes as a “Road Warrior,” and as much as I hate to admit it — even with a couple of gas/potty/snack breaks along the way — when I decide not to break the trip into two days I really feel it the next day. There may well come a time when the long drive is no longer tenable.

That brings us back full-circle to the beginning of this column. But instead of being jealous, I’ve been thinking it may just be time for something new. I’m still open to some overseas travel if the right opportunities arise, and there are still plenty of places right here in the good ol’ US of A I have on my bucket list. But when it comes to these annual family vacation gatherings, I feel they may need to be a little closer to home. I’ll probably take a page from a couple of my friends’ playbooks and rent a beach place or mountain cabin, then I can put out the word that’s where I can be found if anyone wants to visit.

Now all I have to do is get the kids on board.

W. R. van Elburg is a James City County resident. He can be reached at w.r.vanelburg@gmail.com.