People vs. Places

Recently someone on my triplet email list posted about their summer vacation last year and their plans for this year. They had toured factories all over a particular region of the country, and were looking for other off-the-beaten path adventures for this year's trip.

For a moment I was envious. You see, I want to take my kids to the jelly belly factory too. And Mount Rushmore. In fact I was really tempted by these signs on Day 3—

Passing up the opportunity to see the largest prairie dog in the world was hard for me!

I thought a lot about this as I drove. (I've had a lot of time to think recently...) Every time that we go to visit Utah I have this little conversation with myself. I tell myself that we will do something touristy this year. That we will go and see something interesting.

But we never do.

We go to different houses—grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends. And then we just hang out. The kids play and play, and I talk and talk. And we love it.

So I'm going to stop planning to do something in Utah, and acknowledge that this trip is entirely about people. We love living in North Carolina, but we really hate living so far away from some many people that we love. This trip is our time to renew these relationships, which is more important than the worlds largest prairie dog anyway.

Other vacations will be about adventures, and usually we manage some adventure in the traveling part of our journey. One year it was the new Nauvoo pagaent, one year it was the St. Louis Arch, and this year it was Arches in Moab. (pictures coming soon, I promise!)

But for the most part, we're really here for the people.