16 days. On vacation. In a row.

16 days. On vacation. In a row. PAID VACATION

I can't imagine in my adult life the most I'd ever had till COVID was 1 week.

LOL even as kid we were home except one vacation Dad took us on a work road trip for 2 weeks through Florida down the east coast and back up through the west coast. Don't know how he survived that, he was a helluva man.

I like the joke about what time does every man enjoy the most on vacation

It's the time between finally getting the luggage loaded up to the walk to sit down to drive out of the driveway.

originally posted by: putnam6
16 days. On vacation. In a row. PAID VACATION

LOL even as kid we were home except one vacation Dad took us on a work road trip for 2 weeks through Florida down the east coast and back up through the west coast. Don't know how he survived that, he was a helluva man.

When I was a kid, my dad rented a Winnebago and drove my mom, five kids, plus my oldest brother’s best friend from Atlanta to the Grand Canyon and back. It was about a little over 2 weeks because we were delayed. On the way, the camper broke down and the closest repair shop was on a Reservation. We had to camp there for 2-3 days to wait for the part. I remember that more than the Grand Canyon!

I’m surprised that any of us kids made it back home! He could’ve hid the bodies anywhere 😂. My dad was a great man and a great father!

a reply to: putnam6

My dad was a postman and always saved his two weeks per year for summer vacation. For eight years in a row we went camping in a park in the redwoods. Lot's and lots of redwoods. A near by river for swimming every day and lots of hiking and nature stuff.

He used to fix one dinner on that camp-out, he never cooked at home. He would fix the best spaghetti we ever had, we always looked forward to it. He wouldn't let us watch him, said it was a secret recipe. Turn's out it was warmed up Chier Boy Ardee.

a reply to: BingoMcGoof



I've always said that the best sauce is fresh air and hard work or intense outdoor activity. Makes anything taste good.

originally posted by: LollieK3

originally posted by: putnam6
16 days. On vacation. In a row. PAID VACATION

LOL even as kid we were home except one vacation Dad took us on a work road trip for 2 weeks through Florida down the east coast and back up through the west coast. Don't know how he survived that, he was a helluva man.

When I was a kid, my dad rented a Winnebago and drove my mom, five kids, plus my oldest brother’s best friend from Atlanta to the Grand Canyon and back. It was about a little over 2 weeks because we were delayed. On the way, the camper broke down and the closest repair shop was on a Reservation. We had to camp there for 2-3 days to wait for the part. I remember that more than the Grand Canyon!

I’m surprised that any of us kids made it back home! He could’ve hid the bodies anywhere 😂. My dad was a great man and a great father!

Thats hilarious we did the 2 family vacations to Florida in a mobile home once too 3 Adults and 7 kids from ages 17-3. The mobile home died in Valdosta Dad rented a mechanic's custom van hooked up a UHaul trailer and off we went, I was 12 or so. We had a great time though and the look on the mechanic's face when we all piled out of his van on the trip back. Seems Dad didn't exactly tell the guy how many kids there were gonna be LOL

when I worked for the government it was nothing at all to take 30 days off in a row. You would get 6 payed weeks a year and 2 weeks payed sick time and you could bank another week of OT if you like. 9 payed weeks off a year after.

You could also roll over the previous years under days to the next year but never longer then 2.

Working in the private sector now, I make slightly more then 50% more cash per hour outright but with how shift work differential my take home pay every 2 weeks has almost doubled. but only get 1 week a year off with my current seniority. But working shift work you already get half the year off anyway just you don’t pick the days.

a reply to: putnam6

originally posted by: BingoMcGoof
a reply to: putnam6

My dad was a postman and always saved his two weeks per year for summer vacation. For eight years in a row we went camping in a park in the redwoods. Lot's and lots of redwoods. A near by river for swimming every day and lots of hiking and nature stuff.

He used to fix one dinner on that camp-out, he never cooked at home. He would fix the best spaghetti we ever had, we always looked forward to it. He wouldn't let us watch him, said it was a secret recipe. Turn's out it was warmed up Chier Boy Ardee.

Chef Boryardee did he enhance it? we ate that quite a bit growing up, not that we would have said anything to the Adult cooking but us 4 kids would have said something, especially my sisters

We stayed on a houseboat for a week one summer it was blast we swam and fished all day and night, jumping off the roof till the wee morning hours.

and yes every meal is so much better we had a kitchen but almost everything we cooked on the grill including breakfast smokey pancakes and bacon is quite delicious

I think 16 days is a long time as an adult, I love vacations, especially to the beach but I'll never be able to afford a condo at the beach for that long besides once I started vacationing as an adult about one week was all we could stand before Id feel like I had work responsibilities and the longer I was away the more responsibilities piled up.

That first week back from vacation sux..

a reply to: putnam6

My whole childhood was always camping, we couldn't afford anything else. Only did LA Disneyland once and that was in conjunction with two weeks camping on on Doheny Beach in Southern Cal. Back then, in the late 50s you could do that. Sand and surf

House boats, I was always jealous of that.

I973-
Dad got taken to the white house by a senator to meet with the Vice President. ( I think he rode on a special underground train. They discussed a method of detecting bacteria my dad invented and developed. Dad got home and informed my mom that the VP was sending my dad to Bonn Germany. to meet with a US contact and drum up business between the US and Deutschland.

Mom say No! You cant go!. He turned pale, and said, " but the Vice President of the United States is sending me, I have to go!

Mon says " No! You cant go!.................................................. Not unless you take me and the kids. He said " Done deal!


So we land in Germany, and he did his business with a wealthy elderly gent with one lege blown off in WW2. My folks thought he may have been an Nazi officer or something.

So then we got Eurorail passes, and spent over a month traveling through Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, then over to England. I had so much fun. I used to sneak out and buy beer at as a kid 16 years old in the stores.

a reply to: visitedbythem

That’s awesome and frightening at the same time!😆

a reply to: putnam6

I get three weeks yearly, not counting sick time and company holidays. I ended up using all of it for mental health leave that carried over into short-term disability. My last vacation was a three-day weekend in 2022 to a city about an hour away; the one before that was probably two or three years before covid; we did a week in Charleston, which was nice. Unfortunately, I typically never go anywhere for vacation; I spend all of it doing absolutely nothing as I'm trying to recharge from burnout, which has been the theme for 20 years now.

originally posted by: BingoMcGoof
a reply to: putnam6

My whole childhood was always camping, we couldn't afford anything else. Only did LA Disneyland once and that was in conjunction with two weeks camping on on Doheny Beach in Southern Cal. Back then, in the late 50s you could do that. Sand and surf

House boats, I was always jealous of that.

Yeah we got lucky my Dad was doing well he was one of those guys, he worked his butt off traveling was gone a lot 2-5 weeks at a time, but he was one of those guys that loved his wife and family too. Enjoyed being with us, even when were teenagers, and no doubt pains in that same butt. At the same time we didn't have AC till I was 13, and we lived in a rinky dink house one bathroom 3 bedroom house on a tiny lot.

We spent a lot of time at the lake, and we'd rent smelly old rustic cabins for a few summers with our cousins' family in the 70s and those were probably our best vacations ages 6-10 for me. We spent time with our cousins they were like siblings and we all got along with no drama, and we had loads of fun. It was were you could wake up go down to the dock and fish early in the morning and do the same thing at night. Swim all day, just perfect for a kid like me.

Thinking about my Dad by that time he was the only adult male my Aunt was divorced and he had 7 kids hanging on him and he never lost his temper and was fun to be around. One summer my Mom's younger brother came with us Terry was
probably in his 20s at the time anyway, he was at the front office outside talking to this pretty girl about the same age as we checked into the cabins, and Dad had all of us kids in the car with him and he was watching Terry talk and laugh and the girl was laughing too, Dad told all of 7 of us kids to go running up to Terry yelling Daddy Daddy, which we did and Terry's his jaw was wide open as the girl turned on her heels and disappeared.

We lost Terry about 7-8 years later to cancer, we found out he was sick on Labor Day weekend and he was dead 7 months later. That hit my Mom and Dad really hard us kids too he was like an older brother to all of us.

originally posted by: visitedbythem
I973-
Dad got taken to the white house by a senator to meet with the Vice President. ( I think he rode on a special underground train. They discussed a method of detecting bacteria my dad invented and developed. Dad got home and informed my mom that the VP was sending my dad to Bonn Germany. to meet with a US contact and drum up business between the US and Deutschland.

Mom say No! You cant go!. He turned pale, and said, " but the Vice President of the United States is sending me, I have to go!

Mon says " No! You cant go!.................................................. Not unless you take me and the kids. He said " Done deal!

So we land in Germany, and he did his business with a wealthy elderly gent with one lege blown off in WW2. My folks thought he may have been an Nazi officer or something.

So then we got Eurorail passes, and spent over a month traveling through Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, then over to England. I had so much fun. I used to sneak out and buy beer at as a kid 16 years old in the stores.

That sounds so cool Europe and England had to be wild then

originally posted by: Hypntick
a reply to: putnam6

I get three weeks yearly, not counting sick time and company holidays. I ended up using all of it for mental health leave that carried over into short-term disability. My last vacation was a three-day weekend in 2022 to a city about an hour away; the one before that was probably two or three years before covid; we did a week in Charleston, which was nice. Unfortunately, I typically never go anywhere for vacation; I spend all of it doing absolutely nothing as I'm trying to recharge from burnout, which has been the theme for 20 years now.

It's been 13-14 years since I went on a destination vacation when it's your business there are times you just can't get away. We get lucky though the holidays are slowish so we can rotate people but after COVID we have been scrambling. We can't justify the time, or the expense and we have family members we have to take care of daily ie it's why Ive told my daughters to get out and go places. We did a lot and I wish we had done so much more.

a reply to: putnam6

Dad told all of 7 of us kids to go running up to Terry yelling Daddy Daddy,

You had me wrapped up with this and then the punchline,what a scream.

Back in the eighties I guess it was, my dad was a barbershop quartet singer in the East Bay of SF. One of his friends was this rich guy who invited him to be on the board of our cities new festival celebration. 'This was when it seemed every town was getting a festival for one vegetable or fruit or another. But the time our city got around ti it all the good ones were taken so they decided on the 'Zucchini Festival''

Back then, local broadcasting has only just begun on a new station and there was going to be an interview to promote the festival. My dads buddy, him and a few others were going to be on tv. Well, one of the questions the host asked was what is your favorite dish that your wife makes with zucchini. One guy said one thing and another, an other. Then she asked my dad what his favorite zucchini dish was and he said''Oh, I don't have one. My wife never fixes zuchini for us cuz I hate it.
Well, guess what, he was never on that board again.

When I was a kid, we would go on road trips on my dad's vacation. Pack the car and head out to see the country. We had a big tent, sleeping bags, Coolers, and supplies and a map. We did not stop at motels, we slept at free state and county parks on the way. We had a white gas stove and heater, we stopped at roadside parks and cooked coffee and food, rarely did we go to a restaurant but sometimes we stopped at roadside diners....the ones with plenty of semi's at them because the truckers knew the best places to stop.

About every four days or so we stayed at a roadside motel, if they had a pop machine with glass bottles of soda us kids were in heaven. The cost of a bottle of soda at one of those was ten cents, three cents more than they cost at the store. My brother has an old coke machine in his garage, he got it when my mother died. I liked when you would work the bottle up to the place you pulled it out and dropped in a dime and it pulled straight up...very rarely malfunctioning which is unlike the new pop machines these days.

It did not cost much more to go traveling than living at home food wise, plus only once in a while did we stay in a motel. Never knew what the cost of a motel was back in the mid sixties...it was not of interest to me at the time. It did cost for gas, at about thirty cents a gallon, that was quite a bit more than these days. The old sixty three police car we got cheap from a dealer only got about eighteen miles per gallon on the highway. We stopped at lots of lookout points and free or cheap tourist sites and all of us preferred just doing stuff like echoing our yells at roadside parks in the Dakotas area. Mount Rushmore was nice too.

People these days seem to be spoiled, they do not know what they are missing by flying somewhere. When we were driving, we stopped at farmers roadside stands and bought things like eggs, corn, spuds, cucumbers, and green beans along with other things they had for sale there...to save money and get high quality good tasting stuff. Our Ice, we loaded up at the motel to fill the cooler....one room, five of us stayed there, one cot needed to be added.. The motel did not care if you filled your cooler with ice those days, everyone did it. On the way back, we usually stopped in bigger cities and bought clothes from places like Target and Pennies full size stores. Us kids were in heaven and our parents set our clothes allowance at one hundred bucks for the school year, we could get way better prices at those big stores than we got in our small towns.

Even when we went to the beach with relatives for a big picnic at home, everyone brought some potluck dishes, someone brought the dogs, someone brought buns, someone brought beans, and someone brought chips. Corn on the cob was big when corn was cheap too. It cost no more for a group of relatives and friends to go on a big picnic than it did to eat at home. White gas stove, and most of the parks had those charcoal stoves...they also burned hardwood flooring clippings, which were free because my dad worked in a flooring mill. Us kids swam, some of us fished and brought fresh fish to the picnic too. It was far superior to going to a fancy motel with a pool, we live in Yooper land, lake superior is excellent to swim in, so were many county parks with lakes. It did not cost anything to go to them, and if you wanted to camp, there was no charge for setting up a tent back then. Firewood had to be collected from the woods nearby, and ticks were not something to be afraid of back then, just needed to do a check and carry a pair of special tweezers in the first aid kit in the trunk.

What happened to America, where did our taxpayer dollars go now, before there were big free events you could go to because the local governments wanted to attract people to the area to support local businesses. Now, it seems rarely can you get a free event. We went to Finn Fest this year that was free, and we do have senior center activities that are free, but they young do not have much they can do without money these days. I remember going past the store and waiting for the milk truck driver to come out, my uncle drove for Bancroft, but even Jilbert drivers would give us a small cup size carton of chocolate milk or an ice cream bar...it was good advertising to get kids hooked on their brand.

Our country has gone down the tubes, local businesses are struggling because so many people are buying online and the reduced business with no reduced overhead makes local stuff more expensive....and many businesses do not want to lay off their workers they had for years. Loyalty to your local area is going down, people will buy from big places to save a few bucks and if they bought locally, so many more people could be working and prices would be lower....thank you Amazon and all the internet sales businesses for taking money out of our communities here.

Ok, way too much complaining on my part about how everything is going downhill. It does not have to cost a fortune to live, people don't need an expensive lawnmower with a bag and power drive to do a ten foot by twenty foot lawn, a cheap push lawnmower can do that job. We have been conditioned to believe we need things we don't, consumerism has spoiled our lives. There is consumerism in healthcare too, they want us to believe in what they say so we go see them more often. If you do not believe in the medical industry, they have pills for that, usually antidepressants or anti-anxiety meds, but sometimes just acetylcholine inhibitor or anti-psychotic meds so you believe in what they say and keep on spending.

Do I have depression or anxiety...don't think so, sometimes things get stressful and a little depressing...but that is normal if something happens, learn to live with it. Rarely does everything go right, sometimes things go wrong, learn why they went wrong and try to beware not to let it happen again. The stuff I said above in paragraphs about making simple things fun means that you are not blowing all the money trying to impress others or keep up with the jones's. It is more fun to sit at a beach and eat an ice cream cone than to eat in a fancy restaurant. People have been conditioned to spend money on things that they do not need to. It is actually more fun to create a meal from scratch than to go out and spend a pile of money for a similar meal in a restaurant. We had the daughter and her husband here for supper yesterday after noon, two and a half pounds of frozen salmon filets on the grill, three pounds of baby reds and a pound of carrots and some onions in a dutch oven, with two boneless skinless chicken breasts for the wife because she does not like salmon...plus a salad the daughter brought. Except for the salad she brought, our total cost for four was twenty one bucks...she and her husband took two chunks of fish home and a dozen baby potatoes with carrots in containers, and we got enough for tomorrow supper left. That did not include a pot of coffee...thirty five cents...or a beer and two glasses of wine for the wife and daughter....two and a half bucks approx. so say twenty five bucks. But there are dishes to do...but six bucks a person. Got ten twenty ounce frozen salmon wild caught filets on sale for five ninty five each with ten bucks off a seventy five buck total store purchase which made it five fifteen a filet. Got five for us and five for the daughter with the coupon.

a reply to: putnam6

Dad told all of 7 of us kids to go running up to Terry yelling Daddy Daddy," LMAO! That was great!

a reply to: putnam6


Ummm...strange...I'm catching a flight tomorrow morning for a full two weeks vacation...I finally bought my 40' sailboat and am going to be sailing it up the coast...I'll post some pics of the trip...and of the boat natch...

I've been working my current job for 10 years...and have accumulated two weeks paid vacay all those years...this is the first time I've used any...so I'm finally taking advantage and using up a couple...



Have fun...I'm stoked...can't wait to finally have my retirement purchase to self realized...




YouSir

originally posted by: BingoMcGoof
a reply to: putnam6

Dad told all of 7 of us kids to go running up to Terry yelling Daddy Daddy,

You had me wrapped up with this and then the punchline,what a scream.

Back in the eighties I guess it was, my dad was a barbershop quartet singer in the East Bay of SF. One of his friends was this rich guy who invited him to be on the board of our cities new festival celebration. 'This was when it seemed every town was getting a festival for one vegetable or fruit or another. But the time our city got around ti it all the good ones were taken so they decided on the 'Zucchini Festival''

Back then, local broadcasting has only just begun on a new station and there was going to be an interview to promote the festival. My dads buddy, him and a few others were going to be on tv. Well, one of the questions the host asked was what is your favorite dish that your wife makes with zucchini. One guy said one thing and another, an other. Then she asked my dad what his favorite zucchini dish was and he said''Oh, I don't have one. My wife never fixes zuchini for us cuz I hate it.
Well, guess what, he was never on that board again.

Blunt honesty about zucchini you have to love that and completely get it, I prefer my zucchini raw and salty, it's cooked texture is rather unpleasant.

We do the Cherry Blossom Festival and Peach Festival so I get the vibe too.

Barbershop quartet in San Francisco in the 70s its heyday there are probably lots of stories there too LOL

I was just reminiscing

Dad's....it's a time of year when we'd get together, have a cookout have the whole family over, he had a huge back deck built we would move a TV outside watch football drink some beers, and laugh our azzes off.

I enjoy hearing everybody's stories, especially thier parents. They imprinted on all of us, not sure we will ever have that impactful type of parenting again. I was reading on Reddit and a 17-year-old girl had met her Moms boyfriend before her Mom met and later married her Dad. The girl told her Mom, that she should have married him instead of her father, oblivious to genetics and the fact she wouldn't exist without them both.

My Dad had his moments but mostly he was fair in meting out punishment, like I said he traveled a lot, so when he would get back home usually late in the evening on a Friday evening Mom and he both would implore his 4 children ages 5-12 too be quiet and let them sleep in. The man hadn't been in his bed for weeks, and we would do our best at first. We would tippy-toe around at first and watch cartoons on one of the four channels on the TV.

Then we would get to giggling and being the youngest inevitably we'd be messing around and eventually an argument like brothers and sisters do, but my older siblings had better volume control. I'd always blurt out something, getting glares from the other 3 as we heard the belt rack rattling on the bedroom door about 8 feet away from our sofa. LOL its neigh impossible to have 4 kids be quiet enough for 2 hours from 6 am-8 am when the door is 8 feet away

He never was angry but he would line us up by age, and with a couple of decent whacks with a belt on our backsides, it was as if we couldn't start our weekend without getting spanked. We'd promise to do better and on the next weekend morning it would be the same stuff over again.

One time we woke him up as usual and here he came belt in hand, This time he caught me first, or he knew it was my fault. He told me to turn around and as his arm went back my azz made a run for it, I looked like the letter C instead of an I. Dad caught a glance and burst out laughing and half-heartedly tried again and my azz tried to exit stage left again, it had a mind of it's own, this time he laughed louder my brother and sisters chimed in, and nervously laughed too, Id somehow saved us all from a completely deserved butt whipping. Dad fixed us breakfast made coffee and Mom came in wondering how we were sitting around listening to his road stories as if we didn't wake him up at 6:53 in the morning.

Apologies for the ramble...