Staycation

This weeks prompt for The Spin Cycle is Staycation.  What would be a perfect one or one that you actually did.  I do not remember that we ever did a staycation.  We took a lot for Famcations.  I married a man whose family lived 400 miles away.  For six of the first eight years of marriage we took our vacation time to visit his parents.  The first summer we visited for our vacation was a real experience.  On the weekend we were taken to visit several of their friends.  It was deemed appropriate and necessary to pay respects to the dying and ill.  Monday Hubby's father presented him with scrapers and paint.  He was expecting the wooden fence surrounding the six acres to be scraped and painted.

It was July and steamy hot in southwest Missouri.  We are adult (22 and 28) children visiting parents (aged 52 and 54) who have assigned us duties of maintenance for their property.  Work to be completed during our vacation from our jobs 400 miles away.  By Wednesday I noted this was unacceptable.  I noted this very vehemently to my husband.  I noted that it was not his job to maintain his parents property.  His folks were in their early 50's and quite capable of the task.  Guess I was a spoiled, selfish kid but that was not my idea of vacation or even a visit.  You see the parents went off their own business to work each day that week.

After that first Famcation we made certain there were plans of a couple of day trips in the area while his folks worked.  Visits to Grandma and the Uncles and Aunt were enjoyable.  Learning more about my Hubby's family proved to be very enriching.  Some years we would get to spend time with cousins in from Kansas.  Those visits are fondly remembered tonight.  All the aunts and uncles are gone.  Hubby is almost the senior member of the clan.

After moving to Missouri, most of our vacations were spent visiting my family in Texas.  There was no fence to paint but there were still folks we "needed to go see".   Usually a visit meant my three sisters and their children would come to my folks home to be with us.  There was always So.Much. Food.  And So. Much  Fun.  Good times.

Now days we are a couple of retired people in a state of constant vacation.  We pretty much do what we want when we want.  Well, within the budget.  We have done the 28 day northeast trip, the 6 week North American Rocky trip into Canada and last year's Disney trip.  There were other trips, to Williamsburg;  the upper midwest;  Kentucky and Tennesee in 1987;  4 weeks across the southwestern and Pacific coast.  Just writing about the trips has made my traveling bones begin to itch.

For more takes on staycations visit Gretchen and Ginny to read all the takes at The Spin Cycle and staycations.