Vacation...Had to Get Away

I just got back from a vacation which was actually a mini-vacation because it was more like a four-day weekend but the two days I took off work to take this vacation was spend traveling in a car. Ah, well you take what you can get and I don’t get a lot. I define vacation as any Monday through Friday when I’m not at work. This is how Merriam-Webster defines vacation:

1 : a respite or a time of respite from something : intermission
2 a : a scheduled period during which activity (as of a court or school) is suspended b : a period of exemption from work granted to an employee
3 : a period spent away from home or business in travel or recreation (had a restful vacation at the beach)
4 : an act or an instance of vacating

I work in corporate America and therefore get two weeks of vacation (which is actually 10 days of vacation). When I started with the company I currently work for employees got another five days after 10 years. Yes, 10 years! Because morale has been so poor I think that has changed to five years.

And when you think about it that’s not a lot of time off. Especially when you compare it to anyone who works in the education field, and a lot of my friends do. Some of them get as much as 12 weeks off a year and yes, I feel a little bitterness towards them about that. And don’t get me started on anyone who works outside the United States (the company I work for has offices in Canada and Australia and you wouldn’t believe how much vacation time they get!).

I take my vacation very seriously. There are really two types of vacation: the one where you stay at home (and either do things at home or have people visit you) or the one where you go somewhere. Since we rarely get anyone visiting us in Colorado, most of my vacations are spent travelling. And since I have limited time (and even limited money) I have to make the most of them which means I’m not just going to go off on some random trip to somewhere I don’t really want to go and do something I don’t really want to do. And unless it’s Europe, there probably better be a really big body of water nearby.

And I am very fortunately that my next, true vacation (more than two days) will do just that. While I’ll probably have to endure two 12-hour days in a car it will be worth it to spend time at the cottage on the beach in Oregon. Countdown: 79 days until my feet touch the Pacific Ocean again!