I am on day 2 of LPC – Life Post Cubicle. It still feels like vacation which is about what I imagined. So I figured that would be a good post for this week’s memory challenge – vacations from childhood.

Up until the time I was 10 and my grandfather died, we didn’t go on vacations much. Well, I think we went to the Washington state fair and that we got out of the car and I fed a deer in the middle of the road but I don’t remember the event, I remember the picture of the event. After my grandfather died we started going on vacations. One year we would go to Disneyland, then the next year we would go somewhere my mother and grandmother wanted to go. We went to Hawaii the year that the Polynesian cultural center opened. They weren’t done with all the exhibits. We had a long, long drive to the center where we were going to stay overnight. I think it might have been some sort of a deal for my mom to listen to a time share, I don’t remember. The hotel we were in was filthy and we slept in our clothes. My mom freaked out at the lizards (geckos?) that were covering the wall of our room.

I remember the fire dancers and I remember eating poi. That’s all I remember.

I was mad because my mom invited my cousin Diane to come with us. I wanted to have my mom to myself but she was thinking it would give me someone to do things with. We must have been about 12.

I remember taking a helicopter ride from island to island. I remember picking my own oyster so we could get a pearl so I could have my “memory” set into a piece of jewelry to remember the trip.

At least once every summer we would drive to the Nut Tree which now is a bunch of outlets but back then wasn’t much of anything. A few rides, like a train, and a restaurant, and I don’t know what else that made it such a fun place for my mom and my grandmother.

We went to Santa’s Village and Frontier Village. At Frontier Village I always wore my cowgirl outfit and I used to hope people would think I was part of the show.

Other vacations – they were often “educational” ones to the California Missions or history visits that I could do reports on. Hmm…when I came up with the topic I thought I had a lot of ideas about vacations my mom and I had taken and now I can’t remember that many.

Your turn. What do you remember about childhood vacations?