Life Lessons from Vacations

For many years I have often wondered what is the ideal length for a vacation. When we took our first “real” vacation to Honolulu years ago we were young, new parents, and could only stay a week. It was a lot of fun but by the time we really got into the groove of relaxing, it was time to come home. Having ruled out the “one-weeker” long ago we have tried our level best to make our vacations 10 days or more. These were certainly more satisfying but Christean and I still had that nagging feeling we had not yet grasped the brass ring on the vacation carousel of life. This year we were able to take the trip of a lifetime to Italy and Malta which lasted nearly 3.5 weeks. By the end of the trip we had been gone so long that we both couldn’t remember what we did the first day of our vacation. After the long trans-atlantic flight home we were greeted at the house by our youngest daughter and her little rat terrier named Jersey. Jersey was so excited to see us back again that she ran around the living room in circles about four times and then jumped up on my favorite easy chair and proceeded to urinate all over it. I think the lesson we can all take away from this is as follows: You know your vacation was the ideal length when your daughter’s dog is so excited to see you that she pisses herself.