I was looking at old photographs the other day and they brought up a lot of good memories. I'm going to use this blog to write about various memories from my youth, from time to time. This first memory entry is devoted to family vacations.
The first family vacation I personally remember is when we drove to Florida the summer I turned 5. Our babysitter came along so that my parents could have some time to go out by themselves at night. (And now I understand why that is so important!) The one thing I remember from that trip was going to Circus World and having my face painted to look like a clown. I went around the room talking to the ladies who were applying the make-up. I wasn't shy at all. :)
A couple of years later, we went to Florida again, this time with my maternal grandma. It was my first trip on an airplane. I enjoyed the experience. I know we went to Disney World and back to Circus World.
On one or both of those trips, we visited family friends who lived in Tampa at the time. They had an indoor pool connected to their house. I still remember us all sitting on their couch with our wet hair to take a picture together. Recently, I found them on Facebook and we reconnected that way. :)
When we were a little older, our parents got a timeshare in Pompano Beach and we'd spend part or all of our winter break there. (Some trips we spent part of the time in Orlando.) Some family friends (all with kids the same age as us) would also partake in this timeshare and we'd hang out together at the pool or beach and for meals in the evening. When my friends and I reached babysitting age, our parents would let us all stay in one condo with our younger siblings while they went out. At least once on each trip, we'd go to a flea market and my mom would get us neon socks, Cabbage Patch Kid shirts, and chotchkies for us to take to school. Some classic restaurants we had to go to each year were Po' Folks (great fried chicken and soda in Mason jars) and The Flaming Pit (where all the Jewish people went on Christmas). Sometimes we'd go to the movies together, if the weather wasn't cooperating. We'd all celebrate New Year's Eve together and found it cool that the ball dropped at the actual time (coming from the midwest, that was a huge deal when we were kids). We had some funny and crazy experiences with our friends that made for some interesting vacation stories. One involved ordering a lot of fast food so that all the kids could get the toys the restaurant was promoting.
Eventually, we stopped using the timeshare in Florida. One summer when I was in high school, my parents got one in Lake of the Ozarks, MO and we spent a 4th of July weekend there. We even found a Po' Folks along the way! My grandma came with us for that trip, which was nice. When we arrived, there was a sign that said "Welcome Seniors!" I think it was for college seniors, but my grandma thought it was for her. :) I also remember doing a scavenger hunt at an outlet mall that I would have found boring otherwise. We went on a pontoon boat at one point, as well.
There were a few summers when we went to Barefoot Bay in Elkhart Lake, WI for a weekend. I liked that resort. It was easy to walk around there independently and they had a lot of activities for different age groups. There was a beach attached to the resort and they offered a lot of fun water activities, such as tubing. There was a huge dining hall where everyone ate all three meals. They had the best biscuits at dinner. Someone at our table usually ended up spilling a drink. And there was inevitably a server who managed to break a few glasses, causing the entire dining hall to erupt in applause.
When my sister and I were in college, we went on cruises with our parents. Those were enjoyable, as well. We met some friends on each cruise and hung out with them while our parents did their own thing. We all went on excursions together and ate meals together. On the second cruise, we had such a big group we wanted to eat with that they stuck us in a separate room where we had more privacy to dine with our friends. I would make mention of my favorite cruise experience ever, but it didn't really involve my sister being there, even though it did involve two families coming together for a special reason. ;)
Overall, I have a lot of fond memories of family vacations and I hope to be able to take our kids on vacations like that in the future. I can't wait to help them make memories of fun family trips.
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Melissa, my family went to Barefoot Bay one summer, too! It was so much fun...I especially remember that my sisters and I would all walk down to the beach each morning, but my brother had to sit on the deck with my dad to practice for his bar mitzvah (which was three weeks away).
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