{"id":1226,"date":"2010-10-14T15:06:13","date_gmt":"2010-10-14T15:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/theirbadmother\/2010\/10\/california-dreamin.html"},"modified":"2010-10-14T15:06:13","modified_gmt":"2010-10-14T15:06:13","slug":"california-dreamin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2010\/10\/california-dreamin.html","title":{"rendered":"California Dreamin’"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was recently asked in an interview about my favorite family
\nvacation. My impulse was to answer, what family vacation? but then I
\nremembered that late this summer the husband and I took the kids to Blue Mountain<\/a> for four days. Which, yes, I suppose was <\/i>a vacation, but as Blue Mountain is only a two hour drive from our home it didn’t really feel vacation-y, you know?<\/p>\n

Anyway. I do have a dream<\/i> family vacation.<\/p>\n

It’s nothing fancy. Sure, I’d love to take my kids on safari in
\nKenya, or go snorkeling in Cozumel, but my ultimate, dreamed-of,
\nreally-really-would-so-love-to-do-it family vacation? A road trip.
\nWell, one very specific road trip.<\/p>\n

When I was seven years old, my parents loaded my sister and I into a
\ncamper and we drove from Vancouver, BC, to Disneyland. We wove our way
\ndown the Pacific coast, periodically veering inland to visit points of
\ninterest that my parents had plotted on a tattered map. The Grand
\nCoulee Dam, the Petrified Forest, Hearst Castle (San Simeon), countless
\nKOA Kampgrounds with amusement features like paddle boats and
\nwaterslides… we stopped frequently and we stopped long, taking, if I
\nrecall correctly, a few weeks to wind our way down and back, with an
\nextra few days set aside, of course, for our primary destination, our
\nEmerald City… Disneyland.<\/p>\n

My family did a lot of road trips while I was growing up, and we did
\na lot of camping, but this particular trip stands out among the other
\nmemories, in part, I think, because it was such a long trip, and we saw
\nso much, but also because it was just so perfectly familial<\/i> in
\na way that was almost indulgent. We stopped at every playground and
\namusement park we saw, we bought silly souvenirs, we had dessert with
\nevery meal… it was a vacation of play<\/i>, an adventure<\/i> of
\nplay, and my parents threw themselves into it as wholeheartedly as my
\nsister and I did. It’s one of my very fondest memories of them, of us,
\nof my childhood. And I would love, LOVE, to do it again.<\/p>\n

My dream family vacation, then, would be to retrace the route of
\nthat road trip with my own family. Stop at all the same stops, see all
\nthe same things (to the extent that that’s still possible), be silly in
\nthe same way. Maybe not camping – I doubt that all those KOA’s are
\nstill there, although who knows – or maybe in an RV a little bigger
\nthan our cramped 70’s camper, but still: the same road trip, more or
\nless, over the same route, with the same destination: Disneyland. A
\nnostalgic journey for me; a memory-creating journey for my children.
\n(We would totally detour to Palm Springs, though. I fell madly in love with Palm Springs<\/a> when California Tourism<\/a> invited me there this past spring. LOVE. And there is no better place for silly souvenirs, so. That’ll be a must-stop.)<\/p>\n

It’s not going to happen anytime soon – we don’t live in Vancouver
\nanymore, and we don’t have an RV, and taking three week’s vacation
\nisn’t easy – but I’ve got my fingers crossed that someday, while my
\nchildren are still very young, we’ll do this.<\/p>\n

I can dream, can’t I?<\/p>\n


\n<\/i><\/p>\n

Cheerios\u00ae is giving you the chance to win a once-in-a-lifetime
\nopportunity, your ultimate family vacation. As part of a paid promotion
\nfor their “Do What You Love” Sweepstakes<\/a>, Cheerios\u00ae is sponsoring my post today about what my ultimate family vacation would be. Read mine and Enter the Sweepstakes<\/a> for a chance to actually win your own fantasy family trip or one of a bunch of other great prizes.<\/i><\/p>\n

Cross-posted at The Bad Moms Club<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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