vacation from the tourists

Along with the mass invasion of tourists that summer brings, it also makes us feel like leaving the town. Not permanently, mind you, but for little extended vacations. While bed & breakfast aficionados are swarming into our town, we're swarming away. As soon as my daughter is out of school (which may take a while since they keep extending the school semester due to snow days), we're planning on several trips. None of them are luxury vacations, but all will give us the chance to get out of town and avoid the crowds.

One will be back to Colorado, where we have lots of family to visit with. I'm not necessarily looking forward to this one, as I hate bouncing back and forth from one person's house to the next, as our guests argue with us about spending our time "equally" with everyone we visit. That's part of the fun of presenting your parents with their first grandkids, I suppose. While we are there, I am considering taking the kids camping. Camping in Colorado is fun, and I know of several areas that aren't as crowded during the summer. I'd share them here with you, but that might spoil our fun by exposing them, so...sorry.

We did decide to pick up season tickets to Branson's Silver Dollar City theme park this year, too. It set us back $200 for the entire family, which is pricey. However, if we visit twice they are paid for, and I'm sure we'll go more often than that.

I look forward to the day when our kids are old enough to fly out to the grandparents house on their own, so that my wife and I can do some traveling in Europe and other far-off exotic places that we've been longing to see.