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How I spent my summer vacation - Comments (0)
Melanie Brubaker Mazur - 7/16/2009
I get spoiled with our clear mountain air, cool weather (even though it has been hot lately — sort of — more on that later) lack of traffic, and living in towns with relatively small populations.
Time to chuck all of that periodically, pack everything in the truck, and drive many hours south for some smog, wall-to-wall people, and 100-plus degree temperatures.
Yep, we headed to Las Vegas and San Diego. We saw some old friends in Vegas, where Robert and I used to live and were married. (No, we didn’t get married by Elvis at a chapel on the Strip, although that would have been OK with Robert. It was in the Episcopal Church.)
Remembering why we left summer in Vegas behind us, we then took off for San Diego, exploring the tide pools and lighthouse Cabrillo National Monument, and the USS Midway in San Diego’s harbor. Both are great places to take kids because they can climb and explore and check out ocean stuff and ship things. The Midway held 4,500 troops when it was completed after WWII, and served in the Vietnam and Gulf War conflicts, and of course, my boys liked climbing into helicopter and fighter cockpits they had for that purpose.
When Robert went fishing, it was time for the boys, my mother-in-law and me to hit Legoland and Mission Beach.
Legoland is smaller than Disneyland, but is packed with all of the fun, and most everything is made from, or looks like, Legos. My favorite was Miniature Land, which had little versions of New York, Vegas, the Taj Mahal, Sydney Opera House, etc. Everything was between knee-high and waist-high and made of Legos! Eldest son loved the roller coasters, while Lance adored all of the little kid rides, which there were plenty of. Eleven hours and a fireworks show later, we dragged our sunburned selves to bed and slept quite well that night.
My favorite spot was the beach. We had weather in the 70s and low 80s, breezes, and Lance found little boys to build sand castles with while Sloan hit the surf on a $20 boogie board. I sat and read cheesy mystery novels in the sun, and we ate snow cones and smoothies. It was perfect.
Heading back home, we stopped another night in Vegas, this time enjoying a 108-degree day. Yeeesh, I can’t believe I used to live there. It was good to visit our kids’ godparents, then hit the road back home so I could make up for the week of work that I missed and the paperwork that had stacked up.
My staff did a great job holding everything together and getting the paper out while we were gone, so I thank them for that. This was the first time we’d missed a production day and delivery in more than four years, and that was when I had Lance, so I wouldn’t really count that as a vacation.
It was good to be back, of course, and our poor dog had really missed us. She howled quite a bit during the night, so we had to apologize to the neighbors for that.
We’re glad to be home, and thanks for reading.
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