Found Not Lost

Speaking of summer vacations and touch economic times, gas prices once more rose over the Memorial Day weekend. This morning, I passed by a station posting $2.49/gallon of regular unleaded gasoline.

It’s looking more like a ’staycation’ is in store for us this summer. Staycation means staying close to home. It means finding ways to occupy ourselves and entertain ourselves without having to spend a lot of money. It may also mean that the girls will have to find part time jobs or volunteer opportunities to keep them busy during the day.

We are planning on at least one short trip to the beach this summer. It just wouldn’t be summer if we didn’t get sand between out toes at least once.

One of our favorite places to go, within driving distance from our home, is Wilmington, North Carolina. And with Wilmington NC real estate on a downturn just like the rest of the country, beach rentals are actually reasonable this year even during the peak months. So we’re thinking we’ll take a week, rent a house and just chill on the beach. Renting a house or condo, it turns out, may come out cheaper than staying at a hotel room for the weekend. We can cook our food so that will save on having to pay to eat out all the time and we will have all the comforts of home. We won’t have to be worrying about driving to and from the beach and having to trek sand through the lobby; we can just shake all the sand on the deck and we’d be home!

Sounds like a plan to me, don’t you think?

Chocolate chip cookies, cozy fireplaces, Christmas music and cocoa. Ahhh the reminders of wintertime. Another reminder of winter is the trips we take, perhaps to visit family across town or across the country. Or perhaps to get away from the stresses of everyday life.

Recently, during another seasonal event(Homecoming), my cell phone sufferred a bit when it fell into a cup of Mountain Dew. Now my phone is broken. The keys stick and two of them don’t even function. I almost never have service and my battery dies every other day. Not only did it make me realize how important the number 7 and number 3 keys are on a phone, it made me realize how important the cell phone has become in my life. So before you set off on your winter adventures with your Delsey luggage and such, don’t forget a fully functioning cell phone. To replace my newly broken phone, I plan on getting another trafone, a Motorola W376g. I cannot wait!

It’s no secret, I love to travel. I especially love to travel to places that I have never been to before and discover places that I have never even heard of before. Interestingly enough, one of the more amusing vacations I’ve had was visiting my relatives in London. London wasn’t new to me and I’ve probably read about most of the sights and attractions in London so you wouldn’t think it would qualify for my desire for undiscovered places. But the thing about travelling to someplace where you know people is that everyone wants to show you their favorite spots in their city. One aunt, for instance took us to the Madame Tussauds wax museum and an uncle, in his attempt to show us the William and Mary museum, instead ended up giving us a through tour of the London Underground, the subway system. Let me just say that when you’re walking with a six feet tall city dweller, you better run or jog with him or you just may end up getting separated on the subways. Yep, that’s what happened. He and my sister got on the train before I could jump on, resulting in me getting left behind. Note that this was before the days of cell phones so we couldn’t call each other. I calmly took the next train fully expecting them to be waiting for me on the next stop. But what did they do? They went above ground and took a taxi back to the station that I was on. What the heck kind of reasoning is that? So as you can imagine, we kept going around the train stations all day looking for each other. Funny when you think back on it, but not when you’re in the middle of it.

If you’d rather have a less adventurous tour, maybe you ought to sign on with an agent like Trusted Tours and Attractions which offers sightseeing tours in 23 cities across the U.S. If you’re planning on visiting big cities like New York, San Francisco or Los Angeles, Trusted Tours can provide you with detailed lists of attractions and things to including insider tips that can save you a lot of grief and heartache not to mention time and money. Their New York tours information, for instance, can even clue you in when the best times are to visit popular attractions like the statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building or any of the famed museums in town.

So when planning your next vacation, make sure you visit the Trusted Tours website for online travel guides and sign up for the eNewsletter to always be in touch with what’s new.

One of the places my daughters visited during their summer vacation is the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. While the main objective of a summer vacation in California is usually fun, fun, fun, their aunts try to inject a few education trips in between. This year, they finally made it to the Museum of Tolerance.Jade, my daughter, has been wanting to see this museum ever since we watched the movie about the Freedom Writers. The movie’s synopsis refers to this incident which prompts a trip to the museum:

Then a pivotal moment changed their lives forever. When a racial caricature of one of the African-American students circulated the classroom, Erin Gruwell angrily intercepted the drawing and compared it to the Nazi caricatures of Jews during the Holocaust. To her amazement, the students responded with puzzled looks. Erin Gruwell was appalled to discover that many of her students had never heard of the Holocaust. When she asked how many in her class had been shot at, however, almost all of them raised their hands, and began lifting their shirts to show their scars. This initiated a battle-scar show-and-tell that left Erin Gruwell shocked and inspired to take advantage of the powerful energy she had sparked.

Here are a few facts about the museum:

Read more…

What kid doesn’t like summer vacations? Some of my fondest memories growing up were the vacations during the summer months. One memorable trip for instance was our first ever trip to Europe and my sister and I city hopped and museum hopped all over the place. Before we got to London, we had never even heard of Madame Tussauds Museum. An aunt, whom we were staying with, took us there and were we amazed! Now just about every major city has a Madame Tussaud exhibit.

Just last year, when we were looking for things to do in Las Vegas we found out there was one there! So you know we just had to take the girls over there, even the little ones. They had a blast! Of course, their favorites had to be the fairy tale characters. Go figure!

Wherever your planned destination is, don’t forget to do your research first before you get there. While there is something to be said about the wonders of the less traveled road, traveling with kids and ornery adults requires some planning ahead. For your next trip, make sure you include Trusted Tours and Attractions in your resource list. They have valuable online travel guides for almost every major city in the country which gives you a list of interesting places to see and things to do.

Sign up for the Trusted Travels eNewsletter and enter to win a $150 iTunes gift card Offer ends July 31st, 2008. That’s today, so get over there NOW!