Beach babes, thanks for stopping by for this month’s Where Bloggers Live 07.2022: Dream(ing) Vacations. This month, the gals and I are sharing our dream vacations – past, present and future – with you. PC and I have agreed that ‘summer vacation 2022’ will be weekends in our own backyard. With maybe a weekend getaway road trip late in the season to Balmorhea, “the world’s largest spring-fed swimming pool” [source]. It’s only a short 2.5 hour drive from El Paso so could make that happen on a long weekend. Brennyn and fam had invited us to go with them again this year to South Padre Island this month. But they canceled their plans and decided to stay home. As my summer 2022 bucket list suggests, most of this season’s activities will be El Paso-based. And that’s okay with me.
But maybe the posts of my Where Bloggers Live buddies will inspire you to revisit some of your favorite vacation spots or try a new location this year. Or maybe you will find something in my plans to replicate for your own backyard vacay.
Where Bloggers Live
Ever wonder where the ideas for this series come from? Well, let me tell you!! Each month our fearless leader Bettye comes up with a prompt for the gang to respond to. The prompts always make me use my noggin for more than a place to hang my hat!!
But before we get to that, if you’ve missed any of the Where Bloggers Live posts this year, you’ve missed a treat. So far, we’ve given you a look at our ‘rides’ in January and our furry fam in February. And in March we described our dream house. In April I was overwhelmed by LIFE when the gals wrote posts about their favorite piece of furniture. Would still like to do that…someday. For May, I shared my photo albums and scrapbooks. And last month’s post, my favorite movie moments.
WHERE BLOGGERS LIVE 07.2022
In thinking about this post, I stumbled across an article entitled “What Your Dream Vacation Says About You.” Which caused me to reflect for a moment about what my dream vacation would be. My immediate response has always been ‘Caribbean cruise.’ What’s not to love about that? Beside the image of me in a bathing suit maybe!! I have been dreaming about being on a cruise a lot lately!! Makes it hard to wake up.
Lauren and family are having a fabulous time in Cancun this week. Brennyn and I want to grab Lauren and all of us do that for spring break 2023.
- Would also like to recreate for my kids, their kids and extended family the wonderful ranch vacations my parents provided my brother, sister and me north of Creede, Colorado.
- I’d like to take that same gang to the Smoky Mountains in the fall for a weekend stay in the rustic cabins there.
- My daughters have never returned to Panama, where they lived in the first years of their lives. Would like to make that happen.
- Want to travel with PC to Boston – Brookline, where I grew up and New York – Ground Zero, in particular.
- There are several places I would like to travel overseas. England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales. Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
- Maybe wind things up with an Alaskan cruise that would have me wearing lots of layers rather than stripped down to my skivvies.
According to the article I mentioned above, adventurous folks prefer hiking vacations. The cultured enjoy big city trips to visit museums and the theater. Extroverts take beach vacations. Introverts head for the hills. All of this taking for granted that money and time were no object.
Clearly, from the looks of my dream vacations list, I have multiple personalities!!
Dream Vacation Meets Reality
Reality this year has gas prices well above $4.00 a gallon. Increased prices for airline tickets, accommodations, food. A possible recession looming on the horizon. Rising cases of Covid across the country, the world.
Jumping on a plane for a week’s escape is not in the stars for us or our budget. But there are plenty of things we can do here at home. This online article at Psychology Today discusses place attachment, love of your current city (town, village) of residence.
It’s a love for your city, a belief that this, right here, is your place. It’s a sense of local belonging. It’s an emotional bond based on mutual history, responsibility, and affection.
PC and I share a sense of belonging to/in El Paso. Maybe because we met here and have created our life together here. But I remember driving into El Paso on I-10 in 1989, seeing the Franklin Mountains that bisect the city growing larger the closer we got. And falling in love at first sight!!
Creating a dream summer vacation on weekends here in El Paso will be easy for us. We love our city, its people and its opportunities. Hope to enjoy:
- Baseball games (PC’s and the evening games of our Triple A Chihuahuas
- Viva El Paso in the beautiful McKelligon Canyon amphitheater
- Hiking the Franklin Mountains
- Backyard BBQues, eating on the patio
- Swimming and floating in our pool
- Sampling new restaurants and pubs
- Alfresco Fridays and Cool Canyon Nights free outdoor music events
YOUR TURN
What are your summer plans? Do travels to exotic places figure in anywhere? Or is it a vacay-at-home stay-at-home summer for you? And if you are vacationing in your own backyard, how attached are you to the place you call home? Melody Warnick suggests that our answers to these 3 questions can help us figure that.
- Does where you live say a lot about who you are as a person?
- If you could move anywhere right now, would you stay in your town?
- Does your city feel like home?
I think the way you feel about where you live can influence how you view a stay-cation. I love El Paso so being home this summer sounds pretty good to me!!
Hope you will join me in visiting the blogs of my dear Where Bloggers Live buddies to discover their dream vacation and summer plans. Maybe we will both have some new place to consider visiting!!
Bettye at Fashion Schlub
Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Iris at Iris’ Original Ramblings
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style
Leslie at Once Upon a Time & Happily Ever After
Sally at Within a World of My Own
Have spent this entire week waiting to talk with my doctor about some post-Covid symptoms I am experiencing. She keeps promising to call and doesn’t. And our sprinklers are leaking in the backyard. Our water bill was $250 in June. The repair guy determined what was going on Tuesday but is just now here to make the repairs as I type this. This week has been a whole lot of sitting around waiting on folks.
Hope your weekend and mine is full of sun and fun!!
Hugs and kisses,
I love the idea of your stay-cation! I sure won’t be getting very far from home. But, if you look, most anywhere you live there are fun and interesting places to see. We did that one year when we lived in St. Louis and the boys were younger. Found there were all kinds of interesting things to take them to see, and I learned more about the city.
I think the back yard sounds great!
Iris
Seriously, there are few things more frustrating than waiting on a call that never comes. I’ve always said if we could charge doctors for their mishandling of our time the way they do us, there’d be a lot less waiting and more patient care taking place. I know things happen, buuuuut still.
I’ve always wanted to go on a cruise too. Ever since I saw my first episode of The Love Boat. Not that I wanted the romance, but I wanted the adventure. Or maybe that was Fantasy Island… LOL Either way, I’d be game.
We have my husband’s dream holiday booked for October – a cruise out of Southhampton on the Queen Mary to see the Northern Lights. As for my dream holiday? That changes so often!
Oh, my goodness, that sounds heavenly!! Cannot wait to see your photographs of the Northern Lights. What an experience.
I think it’s good to have multiple personalities with the places you’d love to go. Besides our personalities aren’t one-dimensional, so there’s that.
But I love the idea of exploring your own area. That’s what we have been doing so much and it’s always so eye opening. Life is full of fabulousness when we have gratitude for what we do have.
XOXO
Jodie
http://www.jtouchofstyle.com
My dream vacation would be a months long train trip around and about Europe and the UK. I’d also love to go to Antarctica!! Wouldn’t that be something? I’m not about heat, but I wouldn’t mind going to Hawaii. And, I really want to go to Vancouver, BC someday. So, lots on my vacation dream lists!
Oh Lesley I know exactly how you’re thinking. Your summer based in and around your home city sounds lovely. But like you I’m not going abroad as getting on a plane with cases sky-rocketing, no thanks, nor are we taking expensive trips in the UK, but we do have a week in October in a cottage by the sea a short drive away . And In September we drive to friends 3 hours away.
One day you must take a cruise. I’d like to cross the Atlantic and do New York on the Queen Mary on one of those Cunard ships. We used to go on cruises quite regularly so I have done the Caribbean and St.Petersburg and 3 trips to Norway which I love the best. If you go anywhere on a cruise go to Norway – highly recommend 🙂
We normally travel only in the spring and fall because we need to be home in the summer to care for our gardens. However, this year we are not planning a fall road trip either because of rising gas prices. We are planning a short trip to Indiana to see the grandkids and hopefully do some weekend fall hiking trips in our own state or tri-state area.
An entire summer of weekend vacations….now I think that sounds lovely!! I did get a chuckle out of that baseball team name:) Go chihuahuas!! Not the easiest to chant. We have a team in our county as well but have not been in years. I think that could be a fun evening. And my hubby does love himself some hot dogs!! Great combination:) I hope you enjoy the rest of summer…soak it all in!! And with that gorgeous pool in your backyard – um, every day is a vacation day!!
Thank you, darling friend. We are anxious to get the pool repaired (it was never right from day one) and have that behind us. But will probably wait til fall to let the construction get underway.
The city had a contest for naming the baseball team and Chihuahuas won. PC swore he would never go to a game. He thought that was the silliest name ever. But the team has had such fun with it. Nachos are served in dog food bowls. Fans wear dog ear headbands. The marketing has been very clever. And they can play some ball!! Grab your hubby and go for a night of baseball and hot dogs. It is such a good time.