Things You Don’t Want to Hear on Vacation

There are a lot of things you don’t want to hear on your Mexican vacation. Here are a few of my favorites:

• We ran out of chips.
• Stop that! You want to get Javier fired?
• Go ahead, show ‘em. They don’t even have YouTube in Mexico.
• Why are the passports wet?
• You have transportation?
• Oh, he’ll be over there… sometime. Maybe tomorrow.
• I haven’t gotten up to pee all day!
• Just out of curiosity, where is my wallet?

3 Essentials for Battling the Post-Vacay Bulge

If you’re suffering from the thickening of the middle caused by a) cocktails and salty snacks while on vacation, and b) lack of motivation to work out when you got home because of that mountain of laundry… do not despair. I have shared my favorite tips for getting back on the fitness wagon here.

Click here to read Post Vacation Damage Control: Three Essentials for Getting Back on Track

In other news… I am now a big MySpace and Facebook geek!
Won’t you be my friend?

Glimpses of an Ozark Holiday

• seeing a guy from the Pressley Music Jamboree billboard in Wal-Mart (sans toothy grin)
• getting the kids up on water-skis and making them fall off the Ninja (innertube thingy
• being unable to pull my husband out of the water despite ‘giving her all she’s got’
• midnight fishing
• 2am call from alarm company, police are dispatched to our home (just a power outage)
• eating with our hands at the Dixie Stampede
• seeing my husband’s face after riding the big coaster with the boy at Silver Dollar City
• watching my son literally fill up his tray at the lunch buffet (more on this later)
• getting stuck in a storm on Table Rock Lake
• watching my son clogging on stage with the dancing girls
• spending an entire day in an amusement park soaked to dripping
• feeling like a supermodel by comparison to the general public in said amusement park
• walking uphill on deck of the Titanic at the world’s largest museum exhibit (so they say…)
• realizing at the end of the day on the lake that my husband’s glasses we not on board
• learning that almost everything in Branson comes with a ‘dinner attraction’
• learning my new favorite quote, shouted over the balcony of a nearby cabin to the circle of folding lawnchairs below:”Hey grandpa – you want another beer?”
• motivating a chuckle from the Wal-Mart optical department
  “Lost your glasses in the lake? No, we’ve never heard that one before.”

I thinks it’s important to note that it all begins and ends at Wal-Mart. Even on vacation.

Where Are You Going This Summer?

We had planned to go to one of those all-inclusive resorts in Mexico for a family vacation this year. I pictured myself mostly horizontal in a lounge chair surrounded by cabana boys bearing pina coladas and guacamole, the husband snoring peacefully beside me. I would try, half-heartedly not to get sunscreen on my paperbacks. The children? They are in Kid Resort, or Camp Kid, or whatever they want to call it so long as they keep the screaming brats away from me. (I speak here of course about other people’s children, mine being *publicly* practically perfect in every way.)

Cut to reality.

Killer tomatoes, $50 tanks of gas, and a strong desire for the children to wear new shoes come fall got us to thinking we’d stay closer to home. We are not alone. My article Top 5 Midwest Vacation Destinations on HubPages gets a lot of traffic so I decided to get into the details of some of the lesser known destinations. It started out as work, but the more research I did I have to say – these places look pretty cool. And there is something for everyone.

Outdoors:

Midwest Vacation Destination: Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Save Your Cash – Visit Cache River, Illinois

Vacation Close To Home With These 5 Biking Trails in Peoria, Illinois

Table Rock Lake, Missouri: Hot Days on the Water, Hot Nights in Branson

American Tourist:

Treat Your Family to Rich Beauty and Native Heritage at Crazy Horse Memorial

Rush to Mt. Rushmore For Midwest Family Vacation Fun

City Sights:

Midwest Vacation Destination: Downtown Chicago

Old School Amusement:

Natural Beauty and Splashy Amusements Come Together in a Branson Family Vacation

Phone Numbers for Branson Attractions: Shows, Museums, Golf, Theme Parks

Cool Off in the Waterpark Capital of the World: Wisconsin Dells

The other great thing you can do is just be a tourist in your own home town. See all the things you’d take the time to if you had visitors – without the joy of house guests!

So, where are you going?