To the Beach

Summertime.  Some of the living seems easy, some not.  Been an active month with synagogue obligations, medical care, and rendezvous with our infant grandchildren. As restful as 20 minutes of propofol must have been and admiring how well my descendants have turned out, I could use a short couples interlude, followed in a few weeks by a longer couples destination.  We have the good fortune to live within two hours of the shoreline, some bay, some Atlantic.

While resort towns now line the waterfront, attracting increasing numbers of prosperous retirees from DC to settle there and younger families to allot some of their annual vacation time to that sand and surf, my wife and I really do not want parking challenges, expensive hotel stays, or boardwalk amusements.  Our state makes these outings very easy for us.  As a senior, I purchased a lifetime state park pass.  My state operates three more than adequate beachfront locations with changing areas and usually ample parking spaces.  I only need bring beachwear and a sand chair for my wife and me.  One downstate excursion usually coincides with Wawa's annual Hoagiefest, so a quick stop for a low-cost portable lunch enables nutrition.  Access to all but the final few miles now comes as high speeed highway.  Main preparatory questions:  which day and which beach?

The experiences of the three parks overlap, though they are not identical.  I prefer the most distant of them for its isolation.  Its changing facilities appear more basic, and one time I almost got closed out of parking.  The middle location is the largest, near the popular stretch of beaches that people staying at hotels seek.  This location had an upgrade a few years ago.  The changing facilities were modernized.  A small play area for tots now offers young families a respite from the hot sun.  The food options expanded as did the concessions to buy t-shirts and sunscreen.  It seems the most attended of the state's beaches, with patrons seeking places for their chairs as close to the cabana as their luck will allow.  Yet the parking area during the weekdays always has ample space.  And the park has other amenities from history to inlet fishing.  The northernmost park sits where the bay meets the ocean.  A very pretty stretch of sand.  Parking never a problem.  Crowds never a problem.  This park attracts some campers.  It also offers an active wooden fishing pier where I seem to be the angler who has yet to hook anything.  They have a small nature center and a niche historical legacy as a military outpost protecting the mid-Atlantic coast in World War 2.

I don't know which one I will drive to during the upcoming week.  I've not even retrieved the two sand chairs from garage storage.  Seeking just a few restful hours, not enough to get sunburned, maybe a couple of short entries into the surf.  Apply lessons of previous misadventures.  Use spare glasses, having lost one pair of expensive bifocals to King Neptune.  Put cell phone in plastic protector, having ruined one when a wave from the rising tide soaked it.  Ample sunscreen.  Eye on the clock.

Best Deal

My wife and I have a disparity of vacation preferences.  She seems perfectly content at home, willing to go to our kids' homes hours away when somebody else gets her there, and mostly stays inside their places when there.  I have more of a preference to escape to the new, willing to burden myself a bit to do this.  When at the kids, I zip around SF's Muni System, walk the neighborhoods, occasionally book a tour that I go on myself.  At my son's, I walk the blocks near his inner city house and drive around to different places. Hop-on Hop-off buses get a ticket, even though few stops see me exit to explore up close.  I seek the window seat on planes and buses.  New places interest me, even if they are daily stops to those who live there.

Day Trips, typically three, usually occupy my semi-annual agenda, mostly fulfilled by driving somewhere alone or using my free SEPTA Senior Pass to get me to a place I've not visited before.  It's time to get away again, though with a hotel.  Couples time.  The Good Old Summertime.  

My wife and I had our discussion, mostly her setting boundaries.  Our last two multiday road trips did not go well.  Cruises to the Maritimes would fill her need to minimize effort and my need to explore new places.  All filled up by the time we explored cruise options online.  As much as I like National Parks, flights of significant distance followed by a rental car for the multi-hour connection of hub to park fell outside the parameters, before we even get into the park and its requirements for driving and light hiking.

We settled on a three-night excursion within five hours of home.  Electric maps have made that easy.  In five hours, as our distance driving is never shared, I can cover about 250 miles.  Draw a radius from my home address.  I've already visited most of the places inside that circle during my working years.  Only Long Island as a tourist and the Capital Region of NY remain novel.  I looked at both.  Long Island is closer and has more to do.  Generous responders on FB's Visit All 50 States and r/long island of Reddit assured me that a senior couple would have things to do there beyond attending a Bar Mitzvah or funeral within my extended family.  Historical sites, wineries, landscapes, ferries, and gawking at old and new money.  Good for a few days.  For all the antagonisms of social media, sometimes the groups function as communities of helpful people instead of the more typical arena model.

When to go?  I picked dates.  My doctor picked the same dates for a periodic procedure that has gotten a little overdue.  I picked later dates, a time that significantly lowered the hotel prices for the places that seemed most suitable geographically.

Now dates in place, recovery from medical procedure anticipated, alternate dates adjustable by a day or two if hotel rates come down in a different three-night stay, it's time to find a place to stay.  Long Island is the largest island in the continental USA.  It takes hours to drive its length.  It might also take an hour to get past the two boroughs of NYC that comprise its western portion, which I would prefer to avoid this vacation.  I don't want to access beaches, at least not as a swimmer or basker.  Still, the tourism that I seek stretches hours, from the gilded, repurposed mansions at the western and northern extreme to Montauk at the southern and western extreme, would require some driving.  If I stayed in the middle, which seems to be near the island's airport, I would still have an hour to get to the end of the North and South Forks.  Where the forks separate, a town called Riverhead, might serve as a base.  Hotel prices for that convenience come at more of a premium than I am willing to spend.

By now, I've gotten experienced at selecting hotels and airline reservations through online travel sites, though I always check directly with the hotels and carriers to see if they pass some of what they save by avoiding the travel site fee  back to the vacationer.  It usually doesn't.  For accommodations, unless an overnight rest before the next day's flight when a simple bed will do, I have my preferred amenities.  I like the place I choose to have a pool if I am staying more than one day, preferably indoor.  Most hotel stays I enter it.  In warm places, outdoor usually suffices, but I've been to SC in their shoulder season where the outdoor option proved chilly.  Wi-Fi in room has become a must.  For all the legitimate critiques of global connections' downsides, I have learned to ration how I use this, yet still feel deprived without it.  Even on cruises, I purchase a minimal internet package.  For an American hotel, I ask the travel sites to eliminate places that have a surcharge.  I also need parking, whether driving with my own car or a rental.  It's one hassle that I find objectionable.  Within reason, I am willing to pay for assured garage space in a big city, but most of the places I select in recent years occupy enclaves of a few hotels in proximity of a shopping center.  This serves me well.  And exercise on schedule borders as a must.  Most places have small work-out areas with a treadmill whose settings options surpass what I use at home.  Breakfast buffet does not appear on my screens.  They are convenient, usually adequate.  I often prefer to drive to a local breakfast place with a menu, sit there with my wife as we choose eggs or pancakes.  I take the anticipated price of eating at a diner into account.

That still leaves a significant number of options.  Then sort by price.  Mostly, I cannot assess location.  For Long Island, I know that the airport and Brookhaven National Labs are in the middle, Stony Brook where I almost attended school sits in the north, the Hamptons, which I cannot afford lie to the south, and Riverhead where the forks branch is closest to the optimal location.  I'll drive a bit more with my own car for a lower prices.  

My wife deferred the selection to me, after we reviewed the various options together.  I chose one near Brookhaven with the amenities I need and the ability to drive to places tourists to Long Island might like to go.  Best Deal?  Probably not.  This is one of those projects where the perfect undermines the good.  To be sure, I agreed to a surcharge for at-will cancellation.

Strangers Responding

I posted requests on Reddit's r/long island and FB's Visit all 50 States.  My wife accepted an abbreviated vacation this summer, with more arduous travel vetoed for now.  We opted to visit Long Island, a three hour car trip.  I had been to various parts many times, though always purposeful.  Weddings, Bar Mitzvah's, Funerals.  Visiting my grandfather's siblings, including an outing onto Rockaway Beach.  Stony Brook as a likely place I might attend.  Tourism only occurred one time when my daughter, who then lived in Queens, suggested Father-Daughter Bonding for Father's Day.  She drove me the full length of the Island's North Shore, a very pleasant afternoon, though a lot of time in the car between my round-trip drive home and the east-west dimension of America's largest island.

This time we go as pure tourists.  No intention of visiting anyone, though I know people who live there.  While residents of Metro NY flock to their beaches, I have suitable beaches readily accessible in my home state.  This time we go to get away from home, seek out places unique to the geography and culture of where we visit.  Museums, history, mansions, unique sites, wineries.  Sources for destinations on The Island abound.  YouTube videos, I Love NY, a variety of agencies to promote local tourism, Trip Advisor.  I looked at all of these.  From them I could stake out the Gilded Mansions repurposed for public use, the distribution of vineyards, enclaves of the nouveau riches of today that might still let a peasant couple gawk from not too close, historical lighthouses, ferry access when an escape might be needed.  Like much data, it comes as a mostly unsorted jumble.  So I asked people who had familiarity on social media platforms, each trusted from prior use.

People responded very quickly, about a dozen each on FB and Reddit.  It made it more of an annotated list, places to give priority when time is limited.  In this era of social media trolls, the generosity and candor of those who responded did not surprise me.  As much as I ration FB, the assigned days to sign on usually bring me to the Visit 50 States site.  I live in an obscure state that people want to cross off their list and in a multistate area where travelers want to check off 4-6 states on their road trip.  If somebody asks what to do nearby, I guide them.  Often they will post with traveler information, where they originate, ages of kids, elderly people in car with them, pets.  I can adapt suggestions to that.  What might a grade schooler like to visit, maybe where kids go on our local school class trips?  Have they ever been on a subway.  Ever seen Amish or Hasidim who live in isolated enclaves?  My familiarity can be very helpful, something a generic YouTube or vlog cannot easily duplicate.  That insight I offered to posters' queries about where I live now and in the past was reciprocated to me that afternoon.  

Reddit, at least when used in my judicious way, has never displayed the toxicity of FB, nor the incessant insertion of advertising or news feeds chosen by an algorithm to make me irate enough to stay logged on.  I ration which days I access and mostly what I access.  People share my interest in Judaism and Jewish cooking.  Many have less experience than me, so I try to be as helpful as possible to people going to the synagogue for the first time or seeking resources to learn more about Judaism.  I have had inquiries about a potholes on the roadways and a library misadventure.  My questions got many informative responses from civil engineers and librarians, as did my request to enhance my few days on Long Island.

If there is a message from this experience, both as benevolent contributor and reciepient, social media need not be the electronic cesspool that users so often encounter, one dominated by trolls and conflict entrepreneurs.  There is business model that capitalizes on exploiting pushing people's buttons, one where some regulation would enhance public experience.  Most users, though, when give the chance, come to these platforms with a measure of good will.  We find people who seek information, reassurance,  guidance through a dilemma, or recovery from an untoward experience.  Strangers, whether with names on FB or avatars or Reddit, reach out when we can.  We want the other people to have good experiences when they visit our places, whether geographic or places of worship, or from the recipes that challenge them in their kitchens.  The users come through on this, creating the expanded communities where people benefit each other.  Nothing demeaning, nothing malicious.  

To get to these generous people, though, you sometimes have to wade through and set aside some of the odious posters, more on FB than Reddit.  Like many people, I read about the downsides of these platforms.  Anti-Semitism, neonazism shielded by anonymity, attacks of people's appearance at vulnerable times in their lives.  I experience very little of this, though enough to exit all platforms for six months, to ration my presence on my return, and to write off of few platforms as places to not enter.  But as a selective tool, people can connect to some very fine people ranging from HS friends who share lives in retirement, experts in various subjects, the people who root for the same teams as you, and people who you will never meet who serve as gracious advisors.  It's a challenge to stay selective and not get rattled by the people you'd rather avoid.  I haven't since my judidious return, and won't meet any of them either.

Travel Preferences

OLLI Spring Semester concluded. Shavuot observed.  A time gap follows until classes resume after Labor Day.  That leaves three months, largely unscheduled, months of opportunity for exploration.  Some fixed points, or semi-fixed points, appear, but not many.  A rendevous with daughter and granddaughter on their travels.  A scheduled doctor's appointment.  Father's Day.  Our anniversary. Tisha B'Av in late July this secular calendar year.  No pressing household chores.  Outdoor gardens need little maintenance.  No pets to arrange care. Mostly possibilities.  Three months of possibilities merged with priorities.

While the current price of fuel has spiked, getting away from home periodically remains a priority.  My wife and I clashed on how this should play out.  Programmed with no hassle suits her.  Minor adventure with new experiences falls high on my radar.  When I set my current semi-annual projects six months ago, I included air travel as an initiative.  Wife sorta OK with that until we arrive at a destination.  Then a thumbs down to car rental and multihour drive.  We discussed cruising.  Conceptually fine.  Europe no.  Canada sold out for the peak of our summer.  Road trip of any type requiring overnight motels along the route has not gone well the last few times.

We diverge on political overtones.  Scenery and marvels of nature and much of history has been populated by people who vote differently than we do.  I just want to have new experiences.  She wants to restrict who benefits from our money.  

So we worked out a pact.  For the peak summer, we would travel by car for a few days.  The air travel would bring us to our grandchild who lives in a place that votes more like we do, but with some nature and resorts.  Not irreconcilable differences.

Big trip the following calendar year, special personal milestone, contingent on health.  A reasonable accommodation to each other.

Snow Tubing

Had been looking forward to a brief winter getaway.  I've never stayed at a ski resort, nor have I gone skiing or snowboarding.  I have visited a ski resort one time, early season.  For financial reasons, I stayed at a much less expensive place, paying a day fee for an afternoon's snow tubing and an afternoon in their indoor water park.  Had a good time.  This time I reserved a three night stay at a different resort.  Arriving on Sunday afternoon, parking seemed at a premium, though without additional fee.  Skiers everywhere, coming down the slopes, riding the lift chairs.  None included with my daily resort fee, but for a nominal amount as a 70-something I qualified for a season pass.  A similar season pass to the regional Level 1 Trauma Center far exceeds that.  My wife and I opted for snow tubing, a Second Act for me, a premiere for my wife.  Day fee of $45 each, paid in advance and signed waiver of liability.

The resort allots these sessions to two hours three times daily.  Since we arrived 90 minutes before our assigned time, we started our vacation at a winery ten minutes away, then returned to check into our room.  I brought the suitcases to the sixth floor.  Next, I retrieved my wife from the car, settled in a valuable space to be relinquished only for a very good reason.  

Snow tubing next.  The main desk directed the two of us to their registration station, a fairly significant hike across the breadth of the facility, past the main dining area, down a flight of stairs, and into a dedicated ski services desk.  Once payment confirmed, we received admission passes with instruction to go outside, turn left an follow the path across the breadth of the hotel again, this time outdoors.  And also mostly uphill.  Despite my faithfulness with a home treadmill schedule, I found the upgrade physically taxing.  Then walking on some snow, figuring out with assistance from an attendant the method for crossing the turnstile, and securing a tube.  Its navy neoprene surface and other safety features made it heavier than anticipated.  Eventually, past a few steps and upslope, a conveyor belt appeared.  I placed this torus to rest on the conveyor in front of me, round side up while I balanced myself and the tube together.  Another attendant got me off the conveyor in the right place.  I picked a lane, while waiting for my wife.  She seemed even more frazzled than me.  I thought we had the same start position in different lanes, but her tube abutted the one in front of her.  To avoid the two of them going together, a big safety hazard.  I moved my wife and the tube she occupied back a little.  The kid behind me moved into my place.  When the attendant gave the go, I nudged my wife who seemed to make it all the way to the rubber braking mats without injury.  

My turn came.  I pushed off the starting ridge.  It went slowly, then accelerated to the thrill part.  Unfortunately, the seat of the tube offered little cushion from the surface.  I could feel jolts of ice pellets or maybe stones displacing my sacrum.  With my hands in the stirrups on the tube's upper surface, I elevated my buttocks for the rest of the ride.  It detracted from the thrill.  We understood after one downhill excursion why all other ticket holders appeared at least fifty years our junior.  No grandparents on that slope with their grandchildren.  The last time, I returned to the course two more times.  This time no more for me, no more for my wife.  

Returning to the hotel went a lot better sloping downward.

Upcoming Respite

During my working years, excessive frazzle periodically became not only apparent but limited my professional effectiveness.  I knew I needed time away and usually place away.  Someplace mostly reachable by air.  Retirement has modified that feeling considerably, though my wife and I have taken vacations, including two overseas.  Each time, though, it seemed more a desire to break the routine or seek an adventure, not a desperate escape.  Two times I've gone away on my own for brief overnight stays.  Seven years into retirement, a mostly peaceful time, that frazzle has returned.

It's hard to tell why.  Recent months have seen the arrival of our first two grandchildren.  That meant some traveling.  It meant living as house guests of our children.  It meant being at home without my wife for most of a month.

Some of my recreation and social engagement have broken down.  While I attend the senior division of my state university, as I have done for years, the classes did not connect as well with me.  My synagogue annoys me, even though only a couple of individuals are really direct irritants and I engage in my share of activities.  I do this as a consumer of somebody else's programming, though, never as a creator.  

My own development of systematic routines has gotten effective.  My Space nears completion.  I have times to express myself in writing and in video.  Exercise gets done on schedule with improvement in well-being.  Some of my medical aging could be better, but none out of control or needing drastic intervention.

Even though much perks along, annoyances are more petty than disabling, for the first time in a while that feeling of needing an escape, some private time with my wife and me, has returned.

My model solution might have been a short cruise.  Show up, eat when you want, visit a port, see a show, splash in the pool.  Not realistic.  No drivable ports this cold season.  In another age, my youth, I likely would have reserved a room at a Catskills kosher resort.  Show up, overeat with no menu restrictions, watch some kitsch entertainment, go to the pool.  Those places are no more.  There are still resorts with activities, just not with the dining options of Royal Caribbean or Grossinger's.  Some Search Engines brought me to a few within an acceptable drive.

The last few times away, I've returned home thinking I stayed one day longer than I should have.  After consultation with my wife, we settled on a resort, one intended for ski enthusiasts, which we are not.  Aquatics in place.  Maybe some snow tubing.  Don't know about dining.  Close enough to population centers that we could find a brewpub or winery.  Three nights should be about right.  Without air travel, and with only three days, I can overpack a little, cover most of my recreational contingencies.  No sites to tour or museums to visit.  Not even spanning Shabbos. Just some overdue couples time.

On the Move

International Travel, or at least bucket list travel, has taken hold among my friends.  Synagogue President off to Madagascar.  They have unique beaches, probably a local culture, vanilla trees climbed by lemurs, but it's a schlep.  Another fellow off to Bulgaria.  I suppose Rick Steves has complimentary observations about the place.  Another on a cruise of the Seine, another in Alaska, both more typical of where prosperous Americans seek a change of pace in their healthy senior years.  Another HS friend posts daily FB photos from Italy.  And not Rome or the Vatican, but the countryside. Another has travel plans to Vietnam.  I did my utmost to avoid subsidized time there.

My own desire to explore the world in the safe tourist mode will need to remain dormant this summer as we anticipate our first grandchildren in different parts of America.  There are a few distant places I might like to experience.  My ancestral towns of Europe, Australia's cities and Outback, the Orient.  My favorite teacher, the Señorita, once took a group to Spain as she immersed us in Spanish culture over the nearer and more accessible Mexican one.  I've never had much desire to explore Iberia other than its Golden Age Jewish quarters.  African Safari?  Maybe in my younger years, not now.  And I'd still like to see the aurora.  It came in proximity of my home for one night, but I missed it.

My last few travels, those to unique places, have exposed some downsides.  I very much liked a week in Paris, more mixed review of the guided tour.  I'd probably have chosen different activities.  Some were spectacular.  Don't think I benefited much from a cooking demonstration and definitely did not want to pay through the nose for the illusion of entertainment at Le Moulin Rouge.  Road trips have become more my speed.  Mammoth Cave a spectacular place.  The drive there interesting but tedious as the lone driver.  Tennessee, another great place to get to and to be at.  NYC brought me to places on Manhattan Island I'd not visited before.  Getting there and back as a driver to Jersey would have been better delegated to some form of public transit.  Pittsburgh and back, an expensive Turnpike, discounted by EZ Pass.  SF, vacation the first time, work or visiting all subsequent times, with recreation carved in. And cruises.  Just get there and make a plan for each day, while eating at whim.  The suitable replacement for Grossinger's with a daily element of tourism.  

This summer, I will just have to admire everyone else's explorations.

 

Staycation

My last OLLI class before Spring Break.  I came home mid-morning, worked on a monthly financial review, then declared Vacation.  First initiative, treating myself to a donut at a new donut boutique, one for me, one taken home to my wife.  Spring Break in progress.

Being retired, time off gets more difficult to delineate.  My life has minimal fixed appointments.  OLLI comprises the majority of them each week, though now only five distributed over three days.  Periodically I need to visit one of my growing roster of medical providers.  These seem to cluster with long lulls between encounters and the diagnostic procedures they want me to have.  Shabbos is sort of a  fixed obligation.  Dinner preparation Friday, Services Saturday morning.  I don't skip a dinner that demarcates my Shabbos.  Services I give myself periodic mornings at home in place of synagogue.  

For the most part, my Vacations separate themselves from the rest of my time by travel.  This makes both fixed appointments and ongoing chores largely unavailable.  It also forces me to seek new experiences.  Unfortunately, my last two journeys as a couple ended in significant medical problems.  I really don't want to be in my car for hours at a time in both directions, nor do I want to deal with airports or rental cars.  As much as I like wineries, hot tubs, and museums, most of these can be had at much reduced expense and enhanced safety using my house as home base.  A Staycation this time.  The risk, of course, is being sucked into errands that would not crop up while on the road.  Our next scheduled housecleaner service would be one of these.

Still, I think of it as mostly an ME week, a chance to do one to three things that I want to do more than I should. While I could delegate the cleaner to my wife, I really should keep myself on-site that morning. At the end of the week, I have a commitment to the synagogue. There remains my exercise schedule, something I try to maintain at hotels if possible.

Things I like to do.  While I won't have a hotel, I have accumulated two JCC Day Passes.  So the steam room, sauna, pool, and gym of a resort remain available to me one time that week.  I had a grand breakfast a couple of years ago at America's largest buffet.  One morning for that, one of the days that the treadmill has the day off.  As tempting as it is to try an adventure to NYC by some inconvenient but discounted public transit, I need to meet somebody there next month.  I'll travel as a couple by driving.  But I can and should do one day trip to Philadelphia, picking out a special attraction.  Wineries not on my radar this week.  St. Pat's Day come and gone, so no compelling reason to seek beer either.  A new restaurant opened nearby, maybe see if it meets its hype.  I like slices of pizza and tuna hoagies.  Maybe pick one as a treat.

And that OLLI Class time, and the travel time to get there and back, can be designated Writing Time.  Fishing probably ought to happen once.  Putting Green and Driving Range are near the OLLI campus.  Those can wait until classes resume.

But one inescapable reality.  My FB Friends all seem to take themselves to the air.  The algorithms pick out stuff that will keep you fixated on the screen, if not create a feeling of I want that too.  At the moment, I don't.

So my ten days of largely unscheduled time has begun.  It feels a little like Vacation, even in the absence of travel.  

Enjoying Spring Break

As a student, I would read about kids making their way to Ft. Lauderdale or Daytona Beach for spring break.  With my tuition and living expenses in school already burdening my father, any cost for debauchery would be prohibitive, even unthinkable.  No doubt some kids could load into another classmate's car, drive to Florida and back in shifts, and share a motel room, paid for by their part-time jobs in the school cafeteria.  In all my university years, I never knew anyone at my school who prioritized their amusement that way, though some devoted parts of summers touring Europe with rail passes and hostels.  Europe has an enrichment value that recreation on a beach drinking beer obtained by an acquaintance with an of age ID lacks.  As a wage earner, I had my share of vacations, some very memorable ones.  Few with hedonism as the focus.  Not even those on cruise ships or beach resorts.  A respite from work became the goal.  Sampling new things, staying away from the telephone, protected time with my wife.  Nothing close to debauchery on my agenda.

Now in my senior years, not needing a respite from any rat race but still with personal schedules to maintain, I find some chill time seriously overdue.  I last took a cruise about six years ago, an Adriatic one that included strenuous tourism in addition to the food, aquatics, and entertainment.  I cannot remember when I last checked into a resort for a few days.  Not since I retired.  My Osher Institute program has its downtime.  Six weeks in winter, more in summer.  One week at the start of spring.  My plans to get away for a couple of days in the winter fell through for the first time in a few years.  The last few spring breaks and the summers, I went on touring type vacations to major cities, places of history, or National Parks.  All places that required agendas or itineraries.  What I need now may be chill time, even if only for a few days.

My funds are ample.  So is my health and energy, adjusted for overdue recreation.  I disliked most of my visits to Florida.  Las Vegas may be a suitable getaway.  Facebook friends periodically travel there for a few days, sometimes prompted by a special show or a need to merge relaxation with stimulation.  It struck me as a good option.  Three or four nights at a hotel, depending on airline schedules.  Bright lights, places to get wet.  Buffets.  Day trips.  Shows at night. No rental car needed.  Just right for a few days.  I would just have to convince my wife, who to my surprise, seemed almost as ready for a few days of minimal responsibilities.  

On to the travel sites.  Air and hotel.  These have now embedded themselves into DIY getaways.  Look for airfares.  Assess places to stay.  Once transparent and straightforward.  Now with budget airlines competing with legacy carriers and people turning their homes or investment property as places to stay, comparisons of options require more sophistication than they once did.  The sites themselves more overtly serve their subscribers than their end consumers like me.  Low Ball teaser rates in big print.  Total packages once taxes, resort fees, and cleanup assessments of Airbnbs, change that considerably.  And the geeks who could enable sorting any way they desire restrict users to sorting by big print.

So three or four nights in Vegas, getting there and back, sleeping, amenities, and eating.  My airport has a dominant carrier with a few budget options.  Round Trip about $350 for American Airlines, $150 + baggage fees for the discounters.  So I thought.  Not that big a difference.  Pick based on departure and arrival times.  Round trip by American Airlines is not really $350.  It is $450.  If you pick a discounter for the return trip, it is $350 plus luggage fee in one direction.  You are not really buying a round trip but one way trips in each direction added to each other when you get to their electronic cash register to pay.  I was willing to spend a flat $350 or $700 for a couple to travel.  I am not willing to spend $900 for my own downtime just to get there and back, especially traveling home cramped in a high pack fuselage.

Hotels, or really places to stay, sorted by teaser rates in big print with full cost of three nights in little print.  Airbnb or vbro might be great if three couples are traveling or if somebody is staying ten days.  The cleanup add-on, part of a hotel's business model, is exorbitant but at least fixed.  Divided three ways over ten days, maybe a reasonable consideration.  Paid by one traveler who only stayed three days, or even one night, doesn't make sense.  Yet I cannot seem to get Travelocity and Hotels.com to eliminate them from my list.  I cannot get them to list the options by real price instead of teaser price.  Not that it matters.  The airfare reality eliminates Vegas.  Just as a college kid, or even as a gainfully employed prosperous adult, pampering of self never had high priority, as much as I enjoyed the times when it happened.

If not Vegas, what about Florida?  I dislike being in Florida most of my visits, don't want to rent a car.  What about Atlantic City?  It's a scaled-down Vegas with spas.  Its grand hotels discounted off-season, accessible by an amount of driving that I am willing to do if I only need to put myself behind the wheel for the hour and a half in each direction it takes to travel there and back.  On to Travelocity again.  Bargain resort hotels in Big Numbers, acceptable with the add-ons with adjacent fine font numbers.  Except what you see is not always what you get.  Some bundle use of the recreation facilities, some hotels go à la carte with a fee for the sauna and steam rooms.  The travel middlemen do not distinguish these.  After picking candidate hotels, I need to go to each site to calculate my own real costs for what I want to do there, from parking to pool, buffets to shows.  I'm getting close to maybe.  Generally you get what you pay for.  Figuring out what you do and don't pay for takes some exploration.  I've not yet abandoned an upcoming respite focused on my physical pleasure.

My age and background give me an advantage.  I learned basic numeracy in the 1960s courtesy of the taxpayers of Ramapo Central School District #2.  Math instruction and analysis of data in science classes progressed from one year to the next.  It was done with brain and paper.  My university years in the 1970s saw my own need to travel periodically.  Big stuff was sorted by a professional travel agent.  Hotels and airfare or train fare to visit family between cities required mostly the skills achieved the previous decade.  Air fares had fixed rates until the Carter years airline deregulation.  Even then, fewer carriers competed with each other, honoring their teaser offerings.  Hotels either advertised in the local newspaper or a handful of chains had begun to emerge.  Knowing how to assess transportation and lodging by hand lets me move from travel site boldface numbers to real costs fairly easily. This may be more difficult for younger folks who already had their numerical data pre-digested.  

How badly do I need an escape?  What is the monetary value of that escape?  I know how to answer this.  My personal hedonism is definitely price elastic.  That price, though, still has some flexibility.

Finding a Respite

Even in retirement, I sometimes need a vacation.  That time approaches.  Only four months ago, I allotted a week to a long road trip, driving more than two thousand miles to visit a state where I'd not been before.  While I found the two end destinations refreshing, the drive took its toll on me as the driver and my wife as passenger.  On returning home, we each required treatment for Covid-19 acquired during the latter days of our travel.

With recovery slowly returning us to baseline, with Osher Institute on a month's intercession, I could use a briefer but more sedentary time away.  While it had been my intent to take a brief overnight trip in December, commitments did not permit that.  January mini breaks had a short track record.  For two or three nights, I would drive off by myself with some defined destination.  I visited Penn State during the region's deepest freeze, which kept some of the campus attractions closed.  One winter I went snow tubing at Camelback, then enjoyed a day in their indoor water park.  Another year I returned to the Poconos, this time seeking an afternoon at the Kalahari water park.  I stayed at budget hotels each time, though all with pools, but not always fully functioning pools.  For supper, I went to brew pubs.  One outing took me to a casino buffet, a great value with senior discount.

This winter, my mind returned more to hedonism.  What I envisioned resembled a stationary cruise ship.  Sign in.  Put luggage in room.  Get food. Change into resort attire for pool and hot tub.  Get more food.  Explore.  Go on treadmill.  Get more food.  Excursions optional.  Such land equivalents sort of exist in several forms.  Las Vegas does this.  So does Atlantic City, though less well.  I've been to such a place near Phoenix but I had to buy meals separately.  The excursion to Sedona needed a car rental with me as responsible driver, so not quite the cruise experience.  I've been to Pocono ski resorts as a day tripper.  They have water parks.  Snow tubing makes for a good excursion.  There are expensive overnight options, as the slopes need upkeep.  And there are premier resorts designed for people willing to spend much more than me, much as cruise ships have different tiers.

The best combination of economical, accessible pampering seemed Atlantic City, until you read the fine print.  This being off-season, the posted room rates are about half what I would pay for a standard motel on a road trip.  Just like ski slopes need maintenance, so do their theaters, aquatics, spas, and casinos.  Thus they add another $30 or so per night as a Resort Fee.  The casinos depend on day trippers who have to park their cars, so a daily fee for that, though less than what city parking facilities typically charge for 24 hours.  Even with these add-ons, I'm within budget.  Then the fine print.  Check-in times 5 or 6PM with a significant nuisance fee for early arrival.  That means the first night I pay for lodging without any access to the pools or spas, the purpose of the trip.  I don't find casinos particularly entertaining and the shows, unlike cruise shows, are not part of the registration fee.  So if I arrive Sunday and depart Tuesday, I would pay two nights but really only have one day of resort.  Or pay the early arrival fee and have one and a half days.  For a longer stay, that would be worth considering, for a quick escape, it's not.

That leaves me other alternatives.  Osher Institute and my wife's choral obligations drive my schedule.  Since it is pampering that I seek, and a cruise is the model, I could arrange a short cruise in the spring, either during the university break or after the semester concludes. There are now ports in driving distance during warm weather and flights to Ft. Lauderdale are plentiful and economical.  That better satisfies my intent.  I can continue to explore AC for another week, but a spring trip seems increasingly attractive.  I'm less willing to settle for less than a few days some authentic R&R, the very best imprints that previous experiences have put in my retrievable memory.

Too Much Driving

As much as I like road trips, I've probably driven my last one.  The route took my odometer up some 1880 miles over a week, traversing five states with two destination stops and two overnight motel rests.  My one-day behind the wheel capacity now seems to be a bit over 400 miles, considerably less than in my 20s when school took me from the East Coast to school in the midwest about twice a year.  If my sleep pattern as a Senior is interrupted in my own bed, the motel beds do not do much better.  

In some ways, long drives have gotten easier over three decades. GPS far outperforms maps and written turn directions. The Interstate Highway System is reasonably complete and sophisticated.  At each interchange there are separate signs for lodging, food, and gas to be found nearby.  At the end of the ramps, signs indicate which direction the driver needs to turn for the chosen service.  Smartphones have made setting up hotel reservations on short notice straightforward.  The gas stations have affiliated convenience stores for coffee and refreshments, sometimes more substantial food.  And all these places are economical, with gasoline costing less than at home and quick overnight motels less expensive than the places I booked for my intended destinations.

As I drove along the Interstates in Virginia's full north-south dimension and the eastern half of Tennessee's east-west dimension, there were places to stop such as state parks, wineries, or mini-historical sites, each providing brief rest to those who need to move on, though perhaps more of a destination to people who live near those places. 

Modern automotive advances also make these journeys easier.  My smartphone will read an audiobook as I drive or I can set Bluetooth to music.  Radios have channel selectors that find local stations.  Cruise control can be used for large sections of highway.  Speed limits have gotten higher.  Virginia made the scenery visible from the highway attractive.  TN and WV did not.

The drive sometimes has its hassles.  I like stopping at universities as the break option, visiting the bookstores, often purchasing a logo coffee mug.  I didn't do well this time, as we visited close to moving day and signs for visitor parking were few.  My long drives are always to some pre-determined attraction, this time Nashville and Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  This always raises an important element in the analysis.  Was the effort of getting there, whether a substantial time on the road or airport irritations, justified by the purpose of the trip?  For the western national parks it always is.  It usually is to visit an international attractions such as Niagara Falls or a unique city like Charleston.  Nashville and the Smokies seemed less so.  A lot of driving for a garish few blocks of loud country music and a park with limited geological uniqueness, to say nothing of the mostly annoying town that supports it. Parking provided by hotels, but something of a ripoff and ordeal when dealing with the municipalities.  I think of Gatlinburg as rural, but parking fees may keep the town afloat. I avoided the expensive flat rate lots.  In Nashville and in Gatlinburg, each city has automated parking validation by card, with a mechanism I delegated to my wife, as it was not obvious to me.  Meters were better.

Travel also brings you to people.  They were invariably pleasant.  Our weekend at the Park coincided with a national convention of Jeep owners, thousands of them, so I got to chat with a few briefly about their interests.  With the Grand Ole Opry I expected people wrapped in the Cross and the Flag.  While it attracted almost no people of darker complexion, and some Gospel elements were built into the music, the experience seemed less sectarian than I expected.  And The Hermitage, plantation of Andrew Jackson, offered much insight into the era and its economics, the estate required much walking.

While I considered driving all the way home from the park, about nine hours, safety concerns prevailed.  I left the final three and a half hours, much through populated areas, for the following morning.  I arrived home at mid-day, unpacked after some rest in my own bed, then picked up a few things I would need to make supper.  I'm tired.  

While I needed different scenery, which is what I got, the strain on me this time might have exceeded the benefits of the two destinations.  And my wife, as passenger with a chance to amuse herself with her cell phone for hours as I drove, did not seem to tolerate the travel very well either. She developed a fever, testing positive for Covid. Likely our last multiday drive.

Vacation Planning

At the end of last summer we had a grand vacation, time in Paris with a guided tour followed by free days.  Memorable for sure.  Expensive.

Had a respite a few hours away this spring, but I need something more elaborate.  I gave my wife a few options with their limitations, mainly the driving that falls to me, irrespective of whether we use my car or a rental.  Not a concern in Paris.  No big problems in Virginia.  The new options of Black Hills, Nova Scotia, and Tennessee will keep me on the road quite a bit.  She opted for Tennessee, divided between Nashville and the Great Smokies, with minor detours to Jack Daniel's and Biltmore.  No planes.  No car rentals.  Just under two months to anticipate.

This should be pretty easy.  Two nights one place, two nights another, one night each to be decided in each direction based on how far I can drive in a day.  Not as easy as it looks.

Travelocity and Son of Travelocity once had an ease that has evaporated.  Pick a city, designate a maximum price, make sure it has Wi-Fi, parking, and pool, then sort by price.  Some snags.  Price puts you a considerable distance from the sights, so sort instead by distance from downtown or preferred sites.  That's better.  Except what you see is not what you get.  Two nights should be the room rate doubled with an increment for taxes.  Unfortunately, not every place you can stay is a hotel.  Sometimes the cost of two days is three to four times the posted room rate.  That's because these travel sites now mingle hotels with other properties that rent short term, the Airbnb's and Vrbo's.  They have a room rate and taxes.  But they have a Property Fee, Reservation Fee, and Cleanup Fee, all a set amount whether you stay for two nights or a week.  For somebody looking for a night or two, that's clutter.  And Travelocity has no mechanism for discarding them from the search.

Nashville has some special considerations.  There are places tourists want to be.  But there is also Vanderbilt University with its world renowned medical center, pro sports, the State Capitol and government activity, Parking is extra, sometimes nominal, often not.  And there are cancellation fee options, sometimes another 20% above the room rate.  Some places near the popular sites have a shuttle.  Hotels are now mostly non-smoking.  Patron reviews reveal loose enforcement by some.  All have Wi-Fi. Not all have room Wi-Fi bundled to the room rate.  And prior patrons comment on unreliable Wi-Fi.

This took some serious effort.  I selected a place, part of a national chain, about a mile from Music.  Paid for non-smoking but braced for what reviewers have conveyed.  If Wi-Fi fails, I can go across the street or to Starbucks.  My stay includes two scheduled treadmill days.  The hotel has a treadmill, though the one in Virginia did not function.  And if all disappoints, I can get into my car, visit a local site, or drive onward to Jack Daniel's.

Judging Distances

Driving to Tennessee at the end of the summer.  Really part of more varied vacation options.  I am so ready for a vacation with hotels, sights to see, and recreation.  Only places I've not been to before considered.  And spousal consent and cooperation essential.  I came up with three options.  She selected Tennessee, a mixture of musical Nashville with my fondness for National Parks and Jack Daniel's.

Sometimes the final outcome lies subordinate to the process of getting there.  My also-rans included The Badlands and Canada's Maritime Provinces.  Transportation needs to each place, particularly driving obligations, determined the final selection. 

South Dakota has no big cities.  It will take a plane to get to one.  I found it gratifying to discover that flights from my home airport to major hubs have very economical fares.  Flights to places not in a hub, whether Rapid City near Mt. Rushmore or Halifax, Nova Scotia, come with a significant markup for convenience.  Long obsolete are the days, and pleasures, of road trip planning with AAA TripTiks.  Anyone with a search engine can find optimal and scenic routes in minutes.

Badlands National Park sits roughly equidistant between Minneapolis and Denver Airports but Mt. Rushmore is far closer to Denver.  And there are two reasonable routes from Denver to South Dakota, either north through Wyoming or an eastern path through the Nebraska panhandle.  The Nebraska route takes less than five hours, the Wyoming route a bit more but offers Devils Tower and a few other unique places en route, while western Nebraska largely traverses ranching land.  Five or six hours doesn't sound like much, considering my concept of where Denver and Minneapolis are generates a much different mental image from where The Badlands are.  Six hours of driving will get me from my home to Boston.  It will allow me to drive significantly beyond Pittsburgh or heading north to about the Thousand Islands Bridge into Canada.  I've done all these, never regretting the effort.  I could go from Denver to Mt. Rushmore easily, one route in each direction, with an extension eastward to the National Park.  Minneapolis to the National Park takes slightly longer, maybe the equivalent drive from home to Ottawa, but returning to Minneapolis from Mt. Rushmore would entail some more serious driving.  Or I could have gone from Denver to South Dakota to Minnesota, but there seems a lot more to see between Denver and Wyoming than in eastern South Dakota and western Minnesota.  It is not just a matter of distance or car time but what opportunities arise to package the tedium of hours on an interstate.

Canada posed more of a challenge to my concept of distance.  I've driven to Niagara Falls, Toronto and Ottawa from my home, each taking most of a day.  I've not driven to Montreal, which seems closer than Ottawa, but really takes an additional hour to drive there.  Getting to Halifax takes about fifteen hours, two days of driving.  My longest personal route has been to St. Louis where I once lived.  Home to Halifax adds two hours to that.  No way am I going to drive that.  Even Boston to Halifax leaves ten hours of driving, still far more than any of my previous driving vacations to Ontario.  And there is a ferry.  Quite a lot of driving to get to Maine, enormous expense, still nearly four hours on the ferry each way.  This is not realistic.  As much as I've fancied every visit I've made to Canada, whether Ontario, Montreal, or Vancouver, Nova Scotia just isn't my best option this summer.  No more than I would be willing to drive a round trip to my old home in St. Louis in one week.

That leaves us with the chosen option, Nashville and Great Smokies National Park, with a few detours to the Biltmore Mansion and other nearby attractions.  It does not require a plane but the drive will span two days in each direction.  Maps estimate twelve hours of driving to Nashville.  The return trip gets fragmented.  Four hours to the park, another two en route home to Asheville, then an additional nine hours home.  Where is Nashville?  It's within five hours of either Atlanta or St. Louis, about an hour and a half from Mammoth Cave.  Yet my mind registers those distances much differently.  St. Louis to Kansas City, a common trip by classmates during my time there is similar, yet one is in-state and the other more foreign in concept.    I have driven from home to Mammoth Cave, which is about the same highway distance as Nashville.  I have driven to Charleston and to Hilton Head.  Each of these lie just a tad closer than Nashville.  Both required an overnight motel stay in each direction.  Figure I can handle about seven hours driving, or roughly home to Niagara Falls, Portland ME, or Columbus OH in different directions.  My sense of distance is not how many miles, but how much time I need to devote the full measure of my attention to traffic safety.  The GPS and online driving calculators correct many of my own misconceptions.  My reasonable ability to cover maybe eight daily hours on the road safely has not changed in a significant way in fifty years of periodic long distance driving.

I've never been to Tennessee.  Much unique experience awaits.  Getting there and back has come into some perspective when compared to other experiences.  My concept of what lies in proximity to what else is often faulty, though now corrected by retrievable information.  Long drive, but worthy destinations and no doubt a few wineries to sample without much diversion from the planned route.

Didn't Quite Reset

Return to OLLI.  Return to household activities.  The final three days of each month I allow myself recovery time from a dedicated treadmill schedule.  New month, new half semester.  Week off to a reset that didn't happen.  Not restored by travel, deferring meal preparation to somebody else, relaxation at a hotel, or new experiences sampling new wines and brews.  Not at all the restored New Me.

Still, upcoming tasks return with me.  At least they are foreseeable.  Two Torah readings, my Birthday, Pesach, resumption of an exercise schedule that has gone well.  Plumbing repairs, decisions on this spring's garden, more OLLI.  I can wedge in a platelet donation.  Some legal loose ends.  Some financial loose ends, resumption of writing that has languished.  Indeed, the rest of my semi-annual projects, only one fully completed in the first quarter of the calendar year.  Nothing beyond my capacity, though I wish the week's reset had been more effective.

Concluding Vacation

This time a short getaway.  Leave Monday, return Friday.  And not very far, less than three hours of mostly highway driving.  One major misadventure, but mostly what times away strive to be.  Relocations from home.  Experiences not readily duplicated at home.  Escapes from the routines of home., 

Not a resort or major international attraction this time, yet still with features of a vacation.  We stayed at a hotel, a very ordinary chain.   Not the most expensive or luxurious, but not No Frills either.  Ample parking, Wi-Fi included in the fee.  I would not select a site, at least in the USA, that did not have these if I had a car in my possession, either mine or a rental.  I've come to expect a pool, in fact, use the presence of a pool as a filter on my online hotel searches, if I will be staying more than three days.  This one had a hot tub as well.  Breakfast buffets have become an expectation of family-style chain operations.  Some more elaborate than others.  I have mixed feelings about these.  I like the convenience, particularly as it allows my wife and me to keep different sleeping schedules.  Cruise ship buffets are over the top.  Motels trade fancy or imaginative for convenience.  Coffee, pastry, bagel, and egg will get me started.  Though I do not include breakfast in my hotel search filters.  Often I prefer to go out to a diner that serves breakfast, one with a menu and waitress, one with people who live nearby opting to have their own breakfast there.  Breakfasts are rarely expensive.  Pillows are usually fluffier than mine, and more of them.  Mattresses often firmer.  And activity more tiring.  I rarely experience serious insomnia at these places.

Vacation is partly about being someplace different, but also doing different things.  Over an adult lifetime, I've had the good fortune to vary the experience, though I can certainly understand other people who work all year to get their two weeks of fishing, camping, or golf as their annual destination.  I've been to resorts, geological wonders, cities of international or historical importance, cruise ships with days at sea dedicated to indulgence, and theme parks that attract visitors of global representation. Each selection unique, while I am the same person wherever my travels take me.  I seek out the new, whether from the buffet at a casino, the selection of on-tap drafts, an exclusive store to gawk at items far above budget, or a National Park creature that I wish I could pet.

Wonder does not always appear on the travel brochure.  On my current trip to a bedroom enclave outside my Nation's Capital, my car takes me through many habitats where people live and work.  Despite the proximity to one of the most cosmopolitan centers in the world, what I found just beyond common commuting distance was the preservation of agricultural land.  I found a lot of repurposing.  Historical buildings in the center of town made into restaurants, surrounded by a rim of upscale homes purchased by people of means and imagination for their potential.  Then a rim of where people like me work, shop, and attend school.  Not a lot of churches considering the population density.  And then a rim of homes which I found on Zillow for about $2.2M.  Lots of them.  Enough to make me wonder how so many people earned or inherited so much more money than I was able to generate.  Vacations tend to make me wonder how my life might have turned out differently had I lived there.  Could I be an islander, a pioneer, an immigrant who will never return to the starting point, a person who sails the ocean while the family sees him a few times a year?  At my hotel, native Spanish speakers dominate the staff.  It would be unthinkable to withhold courtesy or kindness from anyone I've met, though not unthinkable to vote for people to represent me who might be a bit harsh to those we know only by a TV news site presence.

I'm probably more polite, perhaps more considerate, as the guest of another place than I am at home.  I know the people who serve me depend on financial tips, so as a prosperous person, I make sure the waitresses and hotel housekeepers get recognized for what they have done on my behalf. 

Still, my travel is limited to a few excursions a year, mostly minor, occasionally major.  Airports are visited infrequently, maybe once a year since I retired.  A lot of people have their travel as an imposition, dependent on airport lounges and bars that I only gawk at, working on their laptops as I gaze downward over farms and towns.  My travel has become recreational, theirs is not.  My destinations never fail to generate some measure of wonder.  Even the small excursions generate neighborhoods to drive through, history to reconstruct, somebody's imagination to create the menus that I read.  And in retirement, I do this in the right amount.  I chance to be my Best Me, the Best Guest I can be.

Leesburg VA

On vacation.  A sorely needed time away.  I was willing to drive about six hours.  My wife preferred half that, so we opted for a bedroom town of DC Metro, Leesburg.  The nearest public destination seems to be Dulles Airport, where the Metro seems to end.  Leesburg, as we pursue Day 2, has shown its multiple faces.  It seems a bit far for people to commute to the core of DC, though people probably do.  Many large and small employers ring the district. No doubt, the airport employs thousands. We found some history, a central old downtown which offers formal and self-guided historical tours.  There are Civil War sites, including a minor battle nearby.  I was surprised that the Potomac, which separates Virginia from Maryland, was the resource for the defeated Union soldiers to escape.  Since this battle, known mostly to locals and some Civil War buffs, was too small to appear in textbooks, it did spur the creation of the now very large military cemetery system.

Surprisingly close, we find some agricultural land, much of it quite large.  There are vineyards, open mostly on weekends to those seeking their periodic respites from DC.  Some microbreweries have emerged.  There is a large Factory Outlet Complex.  But mostly, Leesburg has become a bedroom city.  Small malls with places to eat, bank, get prescriptions filled, and serve as tasting room outlets for wineries, one that I visited today quite distant.  There are chain motels like the one we chose.  Supermarkets.  Medical care.  

I suspect the population has some economic diversity.  Loudon County is one of the highest income counties in America.  We drove past a few real mansions, a fair number of McMansions, prosperous housing developments where the engineers of aerospace not too far away probably live.  And a lot of more dense housing, townhouses and apartment complexes of a few stories.  No skyscrapers.  But no slums either.

And as something of a bottom line, vacation for me.  No appointment obligations other than those I self-impose.  The hotel's breakfast buffet shifts its times a little earlier than I would have chosen, the pool and hot tub opening's a little later.  There is an exercise room with a treadmill that I've not successfully operated and a recumbent cycle which I used as a surrogate, as exercise is more reliable when scheduled as an appointment with myself.  Same with pills.  I have two Torah portions to learn, one reasonably secure though not yet fluent, the other first beginning.  Those are performed irrespective of where I am or whether OLLI is in session.  Since food preparation is my daily task, one that I like doing, I still appreciate a few days of paying somebody else to do it.

And new experiences.  While not much for Shopping Outlet Complexes, the one here far outstrips what we have at home.  I suspect this place also employs hundreds.  We have vineyards, though not on the scale that distributes through Loudon County.  And our microbreweries and boutique independent coffee shops don't approach what we have sampled here.  

Leesburg, whether as resident or visitor from DC, seems a good place to hang out, especially as a young, prosperous professional.  As newlyweds, we lived in a place with abundant places to eat and visit.  To some extent we did.  Now we do what we usually do pretty much daily, but for a couple of breaks a year, it's good to seek out a place like this, a place where people of imagination create unique blends of things to eat and drink, while recognizing which parts of their historical heritage needs preservation and display. 

Ready for Vacation

When working, I usually had a clear idea of when a vacation might be due.  In fact, I often did not schedule one, let alone plan one until my daily performance had already begun to suffer.  I've done many different things.  Days at the regional beaches when my children were little.  Days at major cities, sometimes by car, sometimes by plane, sometimes linked to my professional travel.  A resort or two.  Three cruises.  Some National Parks.  Israel tour.  Drives through states in my home region.  Visiting relatives.  Linking to weddings of friends and children of friends.  I've been to a lot of places over the years.

In retirement, the need to find new scenery remains, but the internal prod that tells me this has become overdue is no longer there.  I was on a once in a lifetime guided tour of Paris within the last year.  My activity schedule has a spring break for which I afford myself a short trip.  And in the winter I often head off by myself for a few hours drive to a place with a major attraction as centerpiece but also some time enjoying hotel amenities and local brewpubs or wineries.  One of those spring break escapes not very far off, this one without a centerpiece attraction.

But I'm really starting to anticipate a desire for something more elaborate.  Not quite the splurge of that Paris tour, but a week to a new place or new experience.  My wife knows that I am ready to plan something about four months hence and asked for her preferences.

I'm open to largely anything that takes place someplace else.  The internet should serve as a resource for filtering options, but it just seems too vast, too unselected.  I started accessing state tourism office sites.  Every state has one.  And there are national parks.  And resorts.  And cruises.  While I do not want to travel overseas, America has neighbors to the north and to the south.  Really a blank canvas in a way.

And there are activities as well as places.  Fishing, golf, camping. Or a sports camp or a writing gathering or a cooking school Never actually went on a vacation with an activity in mind, other than a tour of wine country in a few places, with wine the destination in one.  Maybe a few days at a cooking school.

And people.  Maybe fish in the most racist municipality in all of George Wallace country.  Been to Amish country and Hasidic towns many times, all on day trips.  Not visited Hutterites.  Really not visited rural people or ranchers.  Passed through many places where people vote much differently than me, but never engaged them.  

Vacation not only lures with places, but what I might like to experience.  Surf the state and provincial tourism options a bit more.

Spring Getaway

Travel had been scheduled next week.  I had reservations at an attractive consumer level hotel, a franchise of a major chain, with indoor pool and hot tub, at the eastern reaches of Long Island where I could indulge a bit for three nights.  As restful as this seemed, I cancelled.  When I travel to a new place, I like to visit the attractions that make it unique.  Long Island has wineries, which left me mostly unimpressed when I visited a few not that many years back.  Theodore Roosevelt lived his final years there.  The homestead would be burdensome to visit with scheduled hours only minimally intersecting my time there.  Sag Harbor has remnants of its whaling heritage.  Closed for the season.  And Montauk Point with its lighthouse and park is more of a schlep than I really want to pursue in mid-winter.  

Spring Break, the final week in March, offers more opportunities.  My wife's choral obligations will have eased, leaving us an extra day or two of travel.  This means either a longer trip or more time at where we decide to visit.  Think of this as a box of time:  leave Sunday/return Thursday.  Ground rules a little up in the air.  Basically, as sole driver, I do not want to stop overnight en route, so not more than eight hours of driving, or about 400 miles.  There are now maps that draw a radius from my home.  There are maps that will draw a radius.  Allowing 350 miles, as highways have their curves and turns, North gets me to about the Thousand Islands, South to the Southern Outer Banks, East deep sea fishing, and West to Central Ohio.  And just beyond range:  Ottawa/Montreal, the LL Bean flagship location, and Duke University.  And a good deal of stuff within the circle:  all of Pennsylvania, eastern West Virginia, all but Western Virginia, all of NY State, all of southern New England.

And let's not completely dismiss a short air trip with car rental, especially now that I have access to a convenient discount airline.

Some will depend on what I like to do.  I like visiting museums, historical sites, and national parks.  I like hotel aquatics.  I like having supper at brew pubs and visiting wineries or breweries or distilleries.  Amusement parks leave me indifferent.  I prefer going out for breakfast to a hotel buffet.  And I like stopping at a place or two along the route, if only for lunch and a driving break.

My wants seem few.  The travel radius large.  The need for a change of scenery, which by then will be about six months after my European trip, fairly large.