The throes of my former three-day weekends have begun many weeks beforehand with planning: reservations, food supplies, first aid to include mosquito repellents and SPF-50 creams, does my bathing suit fit (the way I want it to?!), cleaning the house before I leave, the comfortable clothes packing through a 5-day weather watch, check book balancing to make sure bills are covered, an automotive check list (tires, fluids, trunk room), house light timers, and so forth.  Add whatever else you personally prepare and  we’re on our way.  Don’t forget animal care, which in itself is quite detailed.

Having gone through this routine for several years, I quit.  The tasks-to-goals for comfort and care to get from point A to point B have become unabashedly tiresome.   Viewed as a ‘vacation,’ I think it is anything but!  Highways, byways, parking lots, airports, etc., are too overcrowded for my tastes.   Motorhomes, campers, trailers, ‘toy boxes,’ motorcycles, 4-wheelers and ski-doos, have slowly covered my hi-way journey, blotting out scenery.

Enough is enough!  We stay home.  Glorifying in the relaxed atmosphere of home has been gratifying.  Sure, we still take part in ‘going places far far away’ for extra-ordinary activities, but not on a three-day weekend!  The weekend before or the weekend after is when we plan to escape the home scene.  In this way, our final destination is always more relaxed, there is more room to enjoy all the sights, and we do not have to be so alert, anxious, and careful of the multitudes! 

Ah, three-day weekends – national holidays – are appreciated humbly as we raise our American flag, outside our front door in gratitude and remembrance.  God Bless America and all its citizens!