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Thread: Doing nothing Vacation

  1. #1
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    Doing nothing Vacation

    Vacationing is not something we do. Husband travels for business. I tried joining him a couple times in the 35 years and it was unpleasant for me, he works dah. SO last month I said I want to go to a silly little city with nothing there. I wanted to do NOTHING for two days. Read, rest, use the Gym machines. That was it and if you get back in time go to dinner. I had a really nice personal time. How weird is that? I ended up going back twice to Cloverdale (ha now our joke Cloverdale, who vacations there? After all the places and countries he has been too that I could have went). Went to outside of Indianapolis and had the best!! Indian Bistro meal ever, wow worth the trip in itself. Third time I did not go as I had enough down time.

    Funny how my mind had a set idea of Vacation of doing and seeing exciting places and in the end nothing was great. Are your vacations filled?

  2. #2
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    There were times when i was a kid and we didn't leave town, just went to a hotel so we could use the pool and watch cool tv. I took my son once to do this for his birthday at a very cool hotel.

    I am taking a week off and not goi g anywhere. I need the week but there is a choir concert at my school that i don't want to miss and then i teach hand sewing on Friday. So i will hang out, do a lot of crafty things, and actually be rested at the end of my week

  3. #3
    Senior Member catherine's Avatar
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    I like getting away, even though I travel for business. In fact, I think it's a real perk of my job that I have to travel. If I hadn't I never would have been to Paris, Rome, Munich, Berlin, Hamburg, Madrid, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Sao Paulo, Mexico City. I may not even now have ever seen a cactus in the Southwest, or meandered through Napa Valley, or been to the Martin Luther King Center in Atlanta, or had a jolt of pure serenity in the Portland Japanese Garden or walked the Magnificent Mile in Chicago a gazillion times or experienced the wide open spaces of Texas.

    I tend to like the meander, the unplanned, the running into the unexpected. I have two favorite "happenings"-- finding myself in a field of heather on the Yorkshire moors in the starry black of night, and my DD and I crashing a wedding at a winery when we strolled outside and into the vineyard well before the wedding started and sat and talked for hours between the grapevines and then when we emerged--empty glass of wine in hand--we found ourselves face-to-face with a bride and groom saying their vows!! Those are the memories I like, and I don't get enough of them sitting in my house 24/7.

    We used to rent vacation houses every year when my kids were growing up, and we always took my mother-in-law and brother-in-law. My MIL used to say that one of her Scottish friends would do the same, but she was never that enthusiastic about it. When people would ask her how her vacation was, she'd say, "Acch, it was a change o' sinks." In other words, she was still doing chores like washing dishes and catering to the family, so it wasn't much of a vacation. We used to laugh at that. We have had a couple of vacations that were just a change of sinks.
    "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute?" Emily Webb, Our Town
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    We don’t vacation as in going away for a period of time. We used to but as restful as it was for my husband it was not for me as I did all the planning, packing, taking care of things at home while we are away, etc.. Now we just take ‘vacation’ days which is getting away from the normal routine for a day and do something different. No real planning other than, where shall we go or what shall we do, simply get in the car and go for the day. I've tried staying home and take a vacation day, a do nothing day, but duty beckons and there go my good intentions to do nothing for a day. I destination traveled a lot in my single years and really have no desire to do so now.

  5. #5
    Senior Member catherine's Avatar
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    Another point I want to make is that I've found personally, and it's been backed by research, that a short vacation (i.e., 4-day long weekend) can be just as memorable and restful as a full week or two. I have definitely found that to be the case. It's also less expensive, and takes less planning.
    "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute?" Emily Webb, Our Town
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  6. #6
    Senior Member iris lilies's Avatar
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    We are planning a trip in over Thanksgiving week to New Mexico. I wont plan much at all, just have to plan around our dog’s needs since we are taking him.

    This is the first vacation we have taken since we retired that has flexible start day and ending day. We are planning the start day around something entirely unrelated to us, but when that event happens, we can leave.

    We have other shorter travel destinations planned for subsequent trips for times when we find our calendar clear for 3-4 days. Paducah, KY (quilting capital of the world!) and Galena, IL and Springfield, IL and Indianapolis and Columbus, OH will be short hop trips.

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    oh I don't take vacations though I have at times, I pretty much just take days off and sometimes I use them to do chores (yes well how else to have time to go to the dentist, have a repair person come etc.? or else the dentist doesn't happen and I feel bad about not even maintaining the basics of life). Sometimes I just do more what I want with the day off and not so much chores though for sure. I actually need days off just to psychologically survive almost, I haven't the great discipline to save them for vacation, I'd prefer to take a day off a month, and well that's almost the total of my paid time off. So yes though sometimes I use them for chores, many times I have a do nothing vacation (or 3 day weekend etc.).
    Trees don't grow on money

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    Guess I am different that some here. I research all kinds of things we can do while on vacation. I find that things don't always take as long to see or do as you think so it is nice to have alternatives. Nothing is set in stone but we have lots of options then. I want to see things! My feeling is I can stay home to read a book or watch tv. Currently, I am planning a trip to Borneo and Komodo. Next week we are planning a short excursion to Galena, IL too. I have made lists of places we want to go (short and long trips) and listed things we can do there, best time to go, etc. That way, if we find cheap airfare, we can go without hesitation. This year we plan on leaving for an extended time in the south .... to get away from the cold winter. This trip will be more seat of the pants since we don't know how long we will be in each place. But I still researched some of the cities to see what we want to do there. We are open to change.

  9. #9
    Senior Member SteveinMN's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BikingLady View Post
    Funny how my mind had a set idea of Vacation of doing and seeing exciting places and in the end nothing was great. Are your vacations filled?
    Some are; some are not.

    We still like to get out and see the world. Then I will do lots of research on what to see and do. Not that we have to (or will) do all of it; we've always avoided the "if it's Tuesday, this must be Belgium" mode of travel and on Day 3 of the "gotta-see-it-all" vacation bodies just hurt too much to make it enjoyable. We simply like knowing so we don't return home and kick ourselves for being quite close to someplace we really would have enjoyed visiting -- had we known about it. And we'll push a little to see more. Very little TV-watching when we're in a hotel room in Paris.

    Increasingly, though, vacations are more free-form. I recently took a day-long road trip with my second-best friend in the world. No rule other than we had to be back that evening. We headed to a part of Wisconsin neither of us had ever visited. We stopped along the way wherever it looked interesting. We decided on the fly where to eat lunch (okay, there was only one place open in that town but we could have driven on). We had a fabulous no-stress time, even if we didn't see anything that would show up toward the top of TripAdvisor's list.

    Several months ago, DW and I drove down to Austin, Minnesota, for overnight. We just wanted to get away from work, the dishes, and the dog. Really nice hotel rooms (ours had a hot tub) are cheap there. Austin has a couple of attractions but not so many that you feel obligated to see them all. We ate at the hotel restaurant for dinner (probably could have found better food, but research and driving around? not this time). We visited the SPAM Museum (really) and some antique and book stores on their main street, and drove home leisurely. It was just the break we needed and a lot cheaper than flying to Chicago or Kansas City.

    Lately we haven't been on the big trips. That's been OK -- the trips we take still are restorative.
    Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome. - Booker T. Washington

  10. #10
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    although part of it might be my boyfriend can never seem to arrange a day off when I can. Ok I'll take maybe a day off a month so I have some relief valve etc.. usually on a Friday or Monday, even if it's not the ideal saving up vacation time (yea maybe I'd do that if I got much more than two weeks but I don't really). Whereas my boyfriend we be all mentally "I can't take time off, I can't time off", until he'll get to the point of stress and exhaustion he can't even psychologically function and calls in sick even though he is trying not to take time off. Yea the preventive maintenance and allocating some time off is really more sane IMO.
    Trees don't grow on money

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