Rain And Thunder, The Wind And Haze, I'm Bound For Better Days, It's My Life, It's My Dream, Nothing's Gonna Stop Me Now

--"Nothing's Gonna Stop Me (Perfect Strangers Theme)", David Pomeranz

When I was in sixth grade I went on what I thought of was the best trip I ever took up until that point. 60% of my class wen to Washington D.C. for a week in April. It might as well as have been an entire month because the more I think about it the more I realize just how many places we managed to visit. We went to the Smithsonian; Congress; the Lincoln, Washington, and Jefferson Memorials, and, of course, Monticello, where I had possibly the greatest milkshake of my life.

Every day while I was on the trip with my school friends was something new and exciting. Every day was something I had never seen before. I guess you could say it opened up my eyes on how brilliant and breathtaking getting away could really be. Before that point, on vacations with my family, it seemed almost a formality to go. With the exception of one trip in seventh grade, every family trip was exclusively planned out by my parents. Every activity was laid out by my mom and dad according to a strict schedule. It wasn't that we didn't do anything exciting. It was that it was always something that my parents thought were exciting, which matched my expectations just as often as it did not. It was hit-or-miss a lot. After long, it just seemed like my parents wanted to be on their own vacation and were merely compelled to take me and my brother along.

But the D.C. trip felt like it was my trip at parts. For a few hours a day they let us go off and explore parts of the city in pairs. I don't remember exactly what I chose or who I was partnered up with. But I remember that sense of charting one's own destiny away from meddling influences. There I was, in sixth grade, and I was running amok in the streets of a major metropolitan city with only a chaperone I had to check in with every hour. It was very liberating, not to mention it felt to me like how a vacation is supposed to feel like. I grew the audacity to try everything that everybody else would have thought was stupid or exasperating. And I tried it all.

I was laying wagers with the cashier at buffets that I could eat six full plates of breakfast.

I was smuggling McDonald's hash browns thirty at a time to everyone on the bus.

My friends and I went streaking through the motel in nothing more than our untied bathrobes.

And, of course, who could forget getting on-stage during the dinner theater performance of The King and I on our second-to-last night there?

From that point on I decided as soon as I was old enough to travel completely on my own, the rules would have to change drastically.

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Aside from my tradition of buying a new pair of socks for this trip, I just recently completed the other ritual I go through every year before I leave for parts unknown. Yesterday I purchased a lengthy guide book to all things Kentucky. Sure, I'll have both Marion and Tattie to show me around, but they can't be with me the whole week. I thought it prudent that I get myself a guide just in case the need for exploration overtakes me.

The truth is, even if they were going to be with me every step of the way and even if they had wanted to come up with mea to Cincinnatti (which they don't), I would have gotten the guide anyway. It's one of my favorite things to do before a trip, to read up about where I'm going to be before I actually get there. For me it's like doing a walkthrough of a house before deciding to buy it. It's like reading a good recommendation of a restaurant when you've already decided to eat there. It both serves to keep my interest stoked as well as to provided good ideas about how to best plan my itinerary. I mean--firsthand recommendations are great, but almost always there is at least one miss of a place they believe I'll absolutely love and almost always I discover one place that they never knew existed. Something about being in a place I've never been before makes me wish to find out for myself where all the hidden gems are, rather than just have them presented to me.

My mom's notorious for telling me who I should visit whenever I leave on a trip. She's been doing it ever since I started visiting friends out-of-state. Apparently the Tarocs are rife throughout the nation because in every major city I've gone to my mom has told me where somebody I'm related to lives. I'm happy for the emergency contact, but I never make the arrangements to meet up with them. With my friends it's one thing. I know more or less they're going to find places that are fun and cool to hang out in. But with a relative, it'd be more formal and more about keeping up appearances. We'd end up going to all the places where the tourists are supposed to go. And that's a feeling I can't stand. I don't make the arrangements because I don't like having my time off arranged for me.

I think that's part of the reason why I never plan to hang out with friends the entire vacation either. Aside from Lucy, where we make it about seeing stuff together, I always reserve the right to keep my vacations private and unsullied. Ostensibly I might be going for Nora Frisson's wedding. In reality I'm going because I've never been to that group of states before (Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio). That's not true. I've went to Kentucky last year, but I hardly got to see anything I wanted to. That was more about being impulsive, that was more about getting to see delfty at last. This trip feels more like a real trip. And a real trip calls for a real guidebook. And that's the way I'm going to plan it out. Saturday and Sunday I'm all the property of the Frissons. I'm there to help out, delivering that or picking up this. I'm all about getting into the spirit of making the ceremony as awesome as I can help make it. But come Monday I'm going to be hitting the town with the two sisters. I'll be taking suggestions. I'll be listening to advice, but in the end we're going to go where I want to go. We're going to see what I want to see. The way I figure it, they're accompanying me on my trip to their city. If my trip doesn't agree with their idea of a typical touristy trip than so be it. I already told them I'm more than comfortable to part ways with them if the need arose.

I'd like their company. I'd love to be able to spend all Monday doing all these fun things they could devise.

It would make a great segueway into Tuesday and Wednesday when I'll be free to see Cincinnati and elsewhere. Most people would be happy with two days to explore. But I look at it as I'm already folding in to responsibility and duty on Saturday and Sunday. I'm giving up two days of my vacation for something bigger than me. Every other day should be about getting the maximum usage of my time for my own pursuits and crazy ideas. Every hour I waste on making someone else happy is another hour what I might have liked goes undone.

I have my own ideas about what I think will be fun. I have my own wishes for making this trip memorable. The worst thing for everyone would be a trip where I go through the motions of trying to like everything they like, only to have to have it come out later that I didn't enjoy myself at all. Who knows? I might like the whole time with them and I might actually put myself in their hands. I would love for that to happen, because there's nothing than being showed all the greatest parts of a city by somebody who loves and adores the city they happen to live in.

If not, I have my guide book and, more importantly, I have my freedom and the will to exercise it. I think that's the true measure of a great getaway, whether or not you leave behind the burdens of hiding your true self. Work, family, and just plain home life is centered around the principle of adhering to one's responsibility. Vacations should be about forgoing all those voices in your head attempting to rein you in. Vacations should be about listening to one voice, one song.

It should be about opening up a guidebook and finding all you ever needed without ever knowing you wanted it.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers