Since the economy went south in 2008, I haven’t been able to take a vacation. But I did get in the vacation of a lifetime before that happened. When I turned 60, I went to New Zealand. I loved it there. I wish I could live there for a year or more. Mountains and ocean everywhere, wonderful people and places, pristine and beautiful. The perfect place.
Please use the open space below to share your first 50 words on the topic “the vacation.”
First 50 Words - Prompts for Writing Practice 
Vacation? I don’t know if this is the case, but the word says to me that it originates in “vacate” so it probably means to vacate something/somewhere for a time. Growing up as child of parents who owned and ran a grocery store “vacating” was not possible, let alone thinkable. My personal career carried me to the world of education so vacating the year’s classroom usually meant occupying another in which I reversed roles, becoming a student. Winter or Spring “break”? Don’t even think about them. Exams, tests, essays, projects filled the time. Even finding a day, an afternoon, an evening with friends or family was difficult. Vacation is not even on my bucket list any more. Einstein’s dictum that time and space are one rules my life. I can accomplish the same things that a “vacation” would provide right at home. I can meet new friends from what used to be a world away. I can enjoy, get absorbed in the beauties and vistas of what used to be “foreign” lands. Imagination and the wonders of technology helps me in my stay-cations — except for the “home made” meals relinquished by my style of vacation.
The vacation we last took was the vacation from hell. Fortunately, we had traveled all over Europe, to Alaska, the West Coast, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Curacao and, of course, Canada prior to the last vacation and have wonderful memories.. This time we rented a place through AirB&B in Denmark. We also took our high school granddaughter with us for her very first trip overseas. Let me preface this by saying that I have permanent nerve damage to my feet post chemotherapy and am not physically in shape as I was on all former vacations. My husband specifically inquired about the apartment rental’s proximity to transport and was assured it was convenient to everything. On arrival we learned the apartment was a walk up of three flights of stairs. Next, as we drew back the coverlet we could see that the sheets were stained with semen. You might ask why we didn’t leave immediately. Good question. After traveling from New York and all that involved with busy airports, baggage, change of time, and jet leg we didn’t have the stamina to try and find anything else when we arrived at night. After resting overnight and getting most of our strength back late the next morning we decided it would simply be better to stay put and not have to move with granddaughter and baggage to a new place. That was adaptation #1. Then on our first day of touring the area we discovered that we were absolutely not close to any sort of transportation. Anything we wanted to do involved a long walk on concrete sidewalks. Adaptation #2. The final icing on the cake was that I had an attack of dyspnea just before leaving one day for some sightseeing. It was my first experience and frightening. The only thing I can think of was that this must be what someone feels like when they’re drowning. I could not breathe and had to mentally control my panic. Too long a tale for this spot but, needless to say, I don’t particularly feel like traveling again long distance. P.S. Not to worry; I was under a cardiologist’s treatment for a year and am fine now.
When I was a kid, my family took a VACATION every summer. It was always the last two weeks of August. When my sisters and I were little, we drove to Pennsylvania Dutch country (I don’t know why my mother thought that was a happening spot), and when we got older we drove way down to Myrtle Beach (in the back of the old ’88 Cutlass Supreme, my sisters and I came close to killing each other a few times), and then the Cutlass gave out and we got a goddamn minivan and drove to Florida two summers in a row.
Now we’re grown, we have our own lives. We don’t want to vacation with our parents…we really don’t want to share a hotel room with them (not that we did as teenagers with changing bodies, but we couldn’t afford our own rooms back then). Vacation means something different now…it means a weekend in Atlantic City or out at the Hamptons house of a family friend. Two weeks away from everything seems like a pipe dream these days.
Vacation? I have not taken any vacation since my husband died ten years ago. And before that, a couple of weekends here and there. Nothing major.
The last family vacation we had, was Disneyland in California and then, we drove to Las Vegas to give away our hard earned money. That was in 1993.
The year after, my husband had his first of four heart surgeries. And then, he was too sick to travel.
So there, now excuse me because I need to blow my nose.