Soon, we’ll be making a nine-hour drive to our beach vacation in California. It will be our seventh year renting the VRBO cottage.
I will admit, I’m a little anxious over the trip. I think it’s because of how things turned out last August. It wasn’t exactly a relaxing vacation with our DIL getting diagnosed with cancer. Our son and DIL planned a last-minute wedding prior to surgery that was cancelled due to COVID. Later, they were able to move ahead with the wedding. At first, they didn’t want people flying in bringing germs, since she was beginning chemo. Then our son really wanted us there, but we couldn’t get flights to make it on time.
It was an extremely stressful time with lots of waiting, questions and prayers. I wrote about it HERE.
The last week of our vacation, friends that we have in the area all got COVID. We left a couple days early, because it seemed like the safe and sane thing to do.
This year I’m reading that Arizona has one of the lowest COVID rates, while California has one of the highest.
The cat sitter is lined up. The next door neighbor is watching our house. Time to pack and hope for a peaceful, relaxing and rejuvenating beach vacation.
Do you find vacations to be relaxing or stressful? Why?
I hope that it’s a relaxing and peaceful vacation for you Elizabeth. 💞💞💞
Thank you! Me too!
💕💕💕
It sounds like the memories from all the problems are adding to any stress you might feel EA and that makes things more difficult. I’m sorry those things are interfering. I hope you can just enjoy the time in CA, take each day as it comes and find new ways to wipe out the unhappy memories and make new ones.
Once we are there, through the drive, done with visits of clients and friends on the way, I think I’ll be ready to relax!
How could all of that been a year ago already? (Or maybe it seems longer ago than that to you, living through it all?) Sending hugs for a happy, safe vacation. 🥰
Thank you! I hadn’t been focused on it all, having lived through it. But returning back to summer vacation in the same spot brought back memories.
I can see why…yes, yes. Enjoy every minute in one of your favorite places, Elizabeth! 🥰
It will be so nice to take beach walks and get out of the heat!
I hope that you’re able to have a safe and relaxing trip and re-frame the unpleasant memories with updates from today. You have a cancer-free DIL, and I bet all else pales in comparison to that. 💕 Deep breaths of ocean air will do you good, I’m sure!
I hope you can have a truly relaxing, wonderful vacation at the beach this year!! No curveballs thrown at you!
I am counting down the days until our Fall vacation to the New England states. I am typically more excited than stressed about vacations. The stress is typically in the beginning packing and hoping you remembered everything and the week before I will sometimes be afraid that someone will get sick or something will go wrong and ruin our plans.
Yes, I think the stress I was feeling had to do with packing. I hope you take lots of photos of the Fall colors.
I will! 😊 And will be sure to share some!
👍🏼
Oh, that’s a lot of uncertainty. I can see why that would pile on with the uncertainty that naturally comes with vacation to create a whole lot of stress. I hope this year’s get-away is more relaxing! Safe travels, Elizabeth!
Thank you! Yes, I’m hoping for a stress free, event free vacation this year.
I hope this year makes up for all the bad from last year. Have a relaxing time. I wonder if returning to a place often relieves much of the vacation stress. We always travel to new places, and that seems like a recipe for stress (though everything usually works out just fine and we have a great time).
We have always returned to either Laguna or Santa Barbara to escape the summer desert heat. But at other times for short vacations we explore new areas. I’m hoping for a relaxing beach trip this year.
Oh, I understand your anxiety, I would be nervous too, but it’s gotta be a thousand times better this year EA. All good things this year. Have a fun time.
Thanks so much! I’m taking your good thoughts with me!
Oh, yea, very good thoughts. I’m sure it will be great weather too to go with the fun memories!!!!
👍🏼👍🏼
Relaxing, I love road trips! I am fine with flying but the husband is not. I would love a long train ride or boat to an island.
I’d like to try a train trip too. I used to take the train with my daughter to Chinatown in LA. I also took the train from Santa Barbara to home when my son went to UCSB. We traveled together. So relaxing.
We are thinking of some long train trips in the future. A friend of mine told us his voyage on the Alaskan railroad. Very interesting.
Cheryl took a train trip last fall across Canada.
Enjoy your time away! We are on a road trip now and are having a great time!
Yay for road-trips!