Category Archives: Vacation

Life and Meaning, Psychology, Vacation

MUSINGS FOR TUESDAY 3RD, JULY 2018

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“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.”  –  Socrates
“Hope is the expectation that something outside of ourselves, or someone external, is going to come to our rescue and we will live happily ever after.”  –  Dr. Robert Anthony

Well it has been a good week.  Nice to be back from vacation.  Very nice indeed.  Northern Colorado is a great place to live, to call home.  And that is a very good thing to say.  I realize that I am lucky to be able to live in a place like this.  And after this last vacation, I have a new appreciation for it.  Things are not always “greener” on the other side as the old saying goes.

Before going on vacation, I came across this quote by Seth Godin and it really hit home.  When Janet and I were planning our road trip there was part of me that did not want to leave or to take the time away from what I was already doing.  So, this quote got me to thinking.  Have I created a life that I don’t need to escape from?  Is my life situation so good that it is like being on vacation?  Good questions!

So I asked and what did I find??  I came to the conclusion that my life is closer to this ideal of Seth’s than I realized.  It is not perfect by no means but it is close.  And I really don’t have a firm idea of how I got here?  That is the crazy part.  I feel like I am in the song from the Talking Heads: “Once in a Lifetime” asking myself “How did I get here.”  LOL.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IsSpAOD6K8

I can tell you that my life has not always felt this way.  There was a time that the feeling for the need to escape was very real.  Palpable  in fact.  It has only been in the last couple of years, in reflection, that this craving has subsided….  Maybe it was the keeping of a journal or the practice of meditation or a combination of both??  I don’t know.   But I have come to the realization that  we all should ask ourselves these questions.   What is the famous quote by Plato or Socrates:  “An unexamined life is not worth living.”

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Doing a “google” search of vacation images, it was not hard to come up with many that had to do with escaping your current life, even if it was only for a moment….  And until till I came across Seth’s quote I probably would not have thought anything about it.

Now don’t get me wrong, I believe that travel is great, even essential to personal growth and development.  To see and be with family.  To experience sounds and sensations that are new and foreign.   So, I encourage you to take that vacation.  To fully enjoy your time away.

But when you get back, ask yourself are you escaping from something?  What is it?  How could you change things so this might not be the case in the future?  It makes me wonder if we as employers and employees have created a work  environment, a culture, a way of life that is much more toxic than we realize.  That it became normal to “need” that escape?  And is it just part of the “Capitalistic – Consumeristic Society” that we live in.  Has it gotten totally out of control?  Always have to have something new?  Go someplace different?  Spend, spend, spend and more spending…To keep up with the proverbial “Jones” so to speak?

The above one by Budge Travel looks good on the surface but in a sneaky sort of way.  “Say, we are not escaping??  What are you talking about??  Just don’t let life escape you!!  You would not want to miss out!!!”  Wow…  Now that is some marketing!!

So, in this short blog I hope that I have spurred you to ask those questions and to look for the answers.  I am not really sure what they are for me.  But I am asking myself the questions.  And I think that will make all the difference.

Well that is about it for me this week.   Have a Happy and safe Forth of July and I will see you next week.

Prius Hybrid, Vacation

MUSINGS FOR MONDAY 25TH, JUNE 2018

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“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did.  So, throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor.  Catch the trade winds in your sails.  Explore.  Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

“Better to see something once than to hear about it a thousand times.” – Asian Proverb

Whistler, British Columbia – Fitzsimmons Creek

Well just got back from vacation.  Great road trip but it feels good to be home.  Decided to go to the Pacific North West.  Made it all the way North to Whistler the Ski Area in British Columbia.  Went through Glenwood Springs – Colorado, Ogden – Utah, Prosser – Washington, Monroe – Washington, Bellingham – Washington (our longest stay), up to Whistler for a day and then retraced most of the route back home.

Glenwood Springs, Colorado – Hot Springs

Ogden, Utah – Catholic Church

The longest stay was Bellingham, Washington – this was about 5 days.  It reminded me a lot of Fort Collins.  Brewery after brewery after brewery.  Bike trails, hiking trails, great restaurants.  And you have the ocean at your doorstep.  It was good to see new places and experience new things, meet some interesting people, and see some of the family that we had not seen in a long time.  The road trip was 14 days in length and covered about 3500 miles of driving.

Bellingham, Washington

Bellingham, Washington

We decided to take our new car, a Toyota Prius – Prime.  A gas hybrid.  And this was a kind of eye opener to what battery powered cars are capable of.  Out of driving 3500 miles our gas mileage averaged about 64.2 miles per gallon.  Which is really good but if there were more “convenient” charging stations, the miles per gallon would have been way higher.  Probably in the 100mpg range.  This was traveling between 65 to 80mph depending on the state laws, fully loaded.  Janet and I packed way too much!  LOL

The weak link in electric powered cars is the charging stations.  There are a lot out there but they are not all convenient.  Every motel, very grocery story, every park, every movie theater, every downtown parking area, every restaurant, etc.…  Needs charging stations.  Any place that you are going to park for an hour or more.  Out of a full fourteen days of driving and exploring we only ended up charging twice.  And the main reason for this was “convenience.”  We found one charger at a downtown public parking area in Bellingham Washington.  This worked out great to go out for dinner, shopping and just walking around while the car charged.  The second one was in a Grocery store / shopping center parking lot in Park City.  Again, this worked out great to load up on groceries, drink a little coffee and to do some other local exploring.  Not one motel that we stayed at had a charging station.  What a perfect place if you are traveling.  You could charge the car each night and it would be ready to go the next AM.  The Toyota got about 50 miles on the battery with in-town driving and about 20 miles on the battery with highway driving and the air conditioner on.  We did a lot of in-town exploring with the car at each stop and figured that at least 500 miles of the trip could have all been on battery power with access to more charging stations.

Views from Mount Baker Ski Area, Washington

I used the app called Plug-Share and it did a great job of helping to find charging stations, but again in a lot of situations they were not convenient.  The technology is out there to vastly reduce the use of fossil fuels.  It just needs to be put in place.  Tesla has a lot of charging stations and seems to get the idea of convenience.  A large Fred Meyer Grocery Store in Monroe, Washington had seven Tesla charge stations in the parking lot.  But unless you own a Tesla you cannot use them because of the amperage.  Tesla’s are superchargers and if we tried to use one it would “melt” our battery.

Anacortes, Washington

Again, a great trip.  Hope you enjoyed this short overview of it.  There were a lot more pictures and things to say, insights and reflections to share.  But I figured this was enough.  Hope everyone has a great week.  See you next week.  Adios amigos!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Family, Vacation

MUSINGS FOR SUNDAY 17TH, JUNE 2018

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Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there.  May you have a wonderful day doing whatever it is that brings you happiness.

Just hanging out in Bellingham Washington.  Always a change from the scenery of the Rocky Mountains and Plains of Colorado.  There are days that I wonder what it would be like to live closer to the Ocean.  To have that option and luxury of owning a boat?  But then I think of the old quote “The best day of my life was when I got my boat and the second best day of my life is when I sold it!”  I own an RV already and I have also heard this quote for an RV.  So I get it.  Lol.  I think that I will just stick with the RV and let others own the boat.

Mount Baker in the background.  Still seems like a lot of snow on it!

We are on day 7 of a 14 day road trip.  I think that you need to do more than 7 days because the first week you are just getting the hang of it.  If I had the time and money I would probably even add another 7 days but that does get a little expensive.  And just getting the time off can be a problem for most of us.  But if you have the opertunity I highly recommend it.  Get out of your  routine, stop at the small places along the road, walk the city, the neighborhoods, talk with the people you meet along the way.   Sometimes you might get lucky and learn something.

Today is also our 35th wedding anniversary.  Damn just wondering where did the time go!!  And how did we get so lucky??  When so many others don’t make it this far?  Just want to say Happy Anniversary to my wonderful wife who has put up with me for this long?!  How have you done it??  Lol

Well that is probably going to be it for me this week.  Looking forward to heading into British Columbia in the next few days and visiting Vancouver and the resort of Whistler.