Family Vacations

In one word, the Adirondacks, upstate New York, filled with campgrounds, lakes, hotels and motels, historical sites, and amusement parks.

At the tag-along-stage in my life, my photos show my grandparents (Thomas clan) and parents liked to stay in cabins near lakes and waterways. My best guess is my grandpa and dad fished while grandma and mom, hum, I am not really sure what they were up to, resting and enjoying nature.

When I reached a point when I was more mobile, the grandparents stayed home while parents visited theme parks, zoos, and historic sites. I also recall several trips into Pennsylvania, a few of the civil war sites ring a bell.

Teen years, when I was very mobile, camping sites (where we sat around, cooked, and consumed food), one was Fish Creek Pond. I recall we had spent the day searching for a place to set up our rented camper and finally found ourselves in line at this site, thinking, hoping it was not a dump. Seemed popular. Finally arrive at the entrance, checked in, search for our space, impressive so far, setup the camper, and to our amazement found this to be a large lake well cared for filled with water sports aplenty.

At the campsite, the family in the space next to us included a guy my age, someone to hang out with, hike and take their motorboat out to explore the lake. Crazy right, they also had a leaky rowboat. We paddled around, tipped it to the level of the lake, cool right, considering I could not swim somewhat fortunate to share this story.

Cannot recall many, or any, vacations once I was in High School. We traveled to the Grand Canyon, but that was more of an exploratory trip to see if we liked Arizona, where we eventually moved for health reasons. In Arizona, a few day trips but no more vacations.

Sitting and thinking, listed a few sites visited while on vacation back east: Niagara Falls, Gettysburg, Lake George, Cooperstown, Fort Ticonderoga, White Face Mountain, and the North Pole, really there it was the North Pole (in New York), surrounded by reindeer nibbling on the ice, while kids were licking the same ice to see if it was real.