5 for Friday: Taking trips

"What? Oh, this dinosaur? Yeah, I dug it up, no big deal."

This is my last post in the series for Summer 2011, which for me has been a great time with friends and some good memories. But there is one thing I did not do this summer which I probably should have considered: taking a vacation.

For my family, vacations were few and far between -- we took one-day vacations before they were cool. But that’s not to say we didn’t take a few trips in my lifetime of note. So here we go, my family’s top trips, at least as best as I can remember.

Cedar Point
Going to Ohio’s premier roller coaster park was a regular summer activity. At his old job in Tiffin, my dad would get discount tickets once a year to Cedar Point and it became one of the staples of summer. Full disclosure, I found out very young in life that I am deathly afraid of heights. It’s caused for Cedar Point to be anything but fun and as I grew older and further refused to get on those death machines, my days after were spent on complaining about the terrible sun burn I acquired and how much my feet hurt from walking and standing around all day. Its not to say that I haven’t given some of the biggest coasters a ride, but it was not often. In fact, I remember going on the Millennium Force when it first opened -- my dad and I were in line almost as soon as the gates started letting people in and we were able to get on the ride within 45 minutes, compared to the three hour waits of everyone else that day. I was probably able to make it through the ride because I had worn my contacts for one of the first times, and with fear of losing them, I closed my eyes almost the entire trip. It’s a lot easier to do when you’re not looking at where the ground is in relation to the coaster.

Camp Glenn
When I was older I spent another summer taking advantage of a perk from my dad’s work and spent a week at Camp Glenn, which wasn’t too far from home but I was sure we were in another city. At the time, it was the longest I had been away from my family, and probably stayed that way until I was well into high school. I wish I could say more about it, because at the time it was a major point in my life but there are only a few memories from that time. Although I did make some friends there who have stayed with me -- and occasionally mention some of those awkward years.

North Carolina
My family took a long trip to North Carolina during my youth, probably during the time my mom was pregnant with my youngest brother but before the other three kids were aware (technically I would have been 9 years old). We traveled by car, and because of that there were a lot of long days on the road, but we broke it up with a number of stops to Civil War battlefields along the way (my dad is a rather big Civil War buff). I remember stops at Gettysburg, Antietam and a quick drive through Washington D.C. in the dark of night. We stayed at more hotels than I can remember and had a lot of lunches at rest areas on the way. It was a fun trip, although I’m sure my parents wished they hadn’t brought three kids under the age of 10 with them (I think this was one of my first memories of Chris and I ganging up on my sister Caitlin). As for North Carolina itself, I don’t remember much of it except the water was salty and we played more than a few rounds of Monopoly. All together it was a fun trip, although I cannot imagine having to make it again today in a crammed ‘92 Ford Taurus with that many children.

Maine
My mother loves Maine. I think that if she had the chance she would happily move there today. We stayed with some friends of my mom’s best friend and brother’s godmother Judy, who also came along with us. I was a little more angsty this time around (I was in 7th grade and taking to wearing bucket hats far too seriously), but that did not mean it wasn’t enjoyable. We spent a good portion of the trip at a very nice cabin on a lake, and long afternoons were lost to swimming and poor attempts at water skiing. I also ate lobster for the first, and last time (I’ve been weary to try it outside of Maine, where it also is served as part of a value meal at McDonald’s which we luckily did not try).

Zanesville
Zanesville is an probably always will be the most common trip for my family. Visits to see our grandparents were very common during my youth, and luckily we were able to see them not only during major holidays abut night tips to Zanesville occurred with regularity in the summer and throughout the year. But summer was especially nice because there were some great things to do. For one, my Grandmother and Grandpa Chief had a camping trailer that they kept in the woods. We would often go out there during the summer and work on building this incredible fort which was made mostly of sticks and logs liberated from the surrounding forest. We also took regular trips to my grandparents on the Paul side, who owned a farm stand in Zanesville. Instead of picking up sticks for a fort, we would go to the fields and pick strawberries and sometimes blackberries, although they were always far messier. And every once in a while we would actually have a few to take home with us. Not often.

I realize that going to Zanesville was a regular thing, but we did it so often it became a big part of my childhood. I’m happy we were able to spend those years visiting my grandparents, especially now that many of them are not with us anymore. It’s time -- and memories -- I wouldn’t trade for anything.