Okay, so it's like this. The Muley family (at least, at this point, Muley and Mrs. Muley) is trying to figure out where to go on a family vacation this summer. We had thought about just doing a few weekends close to home, but the more Mrs. Muley and I pondered this, we realized that we won't have too many summers left to travel together with our girls, and that we need to try to take as many trips as possible while our kids still want to go places with us.
Last year, thanks to a generous, unsolicited financial donation from my parents, we were able to splurge and take the girls on their first visit to DisneyWorld, which they absolutely loved. Well, we don't have the financial resources to do that again, so we are thinking a bit more economically. With the increasing expense nowadays of air travel, we want to go somewhere we can drive to instead of fly to. Even though the price of gas is outrageous, it's still somewhat cheaper to drive instead of fly (unless you plan on driving to Cape Horn in South America, which thankfully is not one of our contenders. I hear it is almost impossible to get Dr Pepper down in Argentina).
So, we are at the moment thinking of returning to the vacation oasis of Branson, Missouri. We were just there three years ago, but there are some advantages to returning so soon. First, it's definitely cheaper than DisneyWorld or Colorado or New York City or Hawaii -- some other spots on our ultimate family travel wish list. Second, we can drive there from Waco in a day's time. (That would give our girls a chance to catch up on all their DVD watching in the car). Third, we all had a good time in Branson the last time around, and if we go again this summer we'd be doing things we didn't before, such as possibly going to a huge amusement park and doing some cool stuff on the lakes.
The problem is that as we do some investigating on the Internet, it seems that in the nice places we would want to stay, the cheaper rooms and packages are mostly booked up. (ARGH! What's with these annoying, well-organized early vacation planner types?) We haven't looked very long at this, but hopefully we won't be faced with a choice of staying in a huge multi-bedroom suite in a nice place (and paying through the honker for the privilege) or staying in a budget one-room efficiency in the Ozark Outhouse Motel out beyond the city water treatment plant.
Have any of the three or four regular visitors to this site been to Branson recently? If so, any suggestions?
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Turning a Page in Life
Isn’t it entirely possible that each of us harbors some sort of fantasy involving “leaving it all behind,” “it” being the secure job, the 9-to-5 existence, the totally tethered life, and heading out for unknown places as a romantic, risk-taking, free-spirited vagabond?
I think so, and recently I met someone who not only acknowledges those fantasies, but is doing something tangible to make them happen. It was at our public library’s used book sale, where I was working. I was in the “Hold” area, where people who fill bags full of dog-eared books they want to buy can temporarily stash them so that they can go out on the floor again, arms free, to buy even more.
When I got to the Hold area to begin my shift, I noticed about 20 bags full of books marked “T.Baker,” and wondered who this person was. I finally met her when she came to drop off another bag, and over the next few hours (as she dropped off probably 10 more bags) I got to know a bit more about why she was seemingly so book-crazy. She was in her late 20s or early 30s, and had driven in from a city more than three hours away to attend the sale.
When I first spoke to her, I told her I had come up with three possible theories to explain her mounting pile of bags:
1. She was preparing to move to an incredibly remote part of Alaska, where the nearest library, post office or Fedex station was a two-week journey by kayak and dogsled;
2. She was an insatiable reader, a literary nymphomaniac, devouring books like a drug addict pops pills; or
3. She was buying stock for a bookstore.
It turns out that the third scenario was correct, but the woman was not just dutifully buying stock to throw on the shelves of some dusty strip center bookstore. No, she has a full-time day job in a big city at a big corporation (which she despises) and knows that she is scheduled to get laid off in 2008. I’ve never met someone so happy (and eager!) to get canned.
Preparing for unemployment, she has started an online used bookselling business in her spare time, selling books through both eBay and amazon.com. That’s why she was buying all these books (more than a thousand dollar’s worth by the end). When she finally loses her steady job, she intends to sell used books full time, traveling across the country, hitting library used book sales, thrift stores and garage sales to buy new stock. She won’t get rich, she knows, but she says she loves books, and travel, and this is a dream of hers to combine those two. And, in her new career, every Ding Dong or Whopper or convenience store munchie she buys while traveling will be tax deductible.
I have to say, the idea of being able to head out on the road, at your own pace and on your own timetable, and go wherever your heart leads you, is a tempting one for me. Of course, if I tried to imagine the details of her situation at all, the picture gets a bit less rosy – the bad food, the smelly stores and rude people, living lean when sales are down, sleeping in cheap motels or even the back seat of the car to save money, being alone at night in yet another small town – some or all of that might indeed be ahead of her, but she isn’t worried about that now. She’s gloriously happy and excited by life, and it shows.
Given the chance, and even forced to do so by circumstance, wouldn’t we all be willing to leave behind the computer screen and the telephone and day planner and interoffice memos, and just fly away singing? At least on some days I think we just might, and damn the odds.
I think so, and recently I met someone who not only acknowledges those fantasies, but is doing something tangible to make them happen. It was at our public library’s used book sale, where I was working. I was in the “Hold” area, where people who fill bags full of dog-eared books they want to buy can temporarily stash them so that they can go out on the floor again, arms free, to buy even more.
When I got to the Hold area to begin my shift, I noticed about 20 bags full of books marked “T.Baker,” and wondered who this person was. I finally met her when she came to drop off another bag, and over the next few hours (as she dropped off probably 10 more bags) I got to know a bit more about why she was seemingly so book-crazy. She was in her late 20s or early 30s, and had driven in from a city more than three hours away to attend the sale.
When I first spoke to her, I told her I had come up with three possible theories to explain her mounting pile of bags:
1. She was preparing to move to an incredibly remote part of Alaska, where the nearest library, post office or Fedex station was a two-week journey by kayak and dogsled;
2. She was an insatiable reader, a literary nymphomaniac, devouring books like a drug addict pops pills; or
3. She was buying stock for a bookstore.
It turns out that the third scenario was correct, but the woman was not just dutifully buying stock to throw on the shelves of some dusty strip center bookstore. No, she has a full-time day job in a big city at a big corporation (which she despises) and knows that she is scheduled to get laid off in 2008. I’ve never met someone so happy (and eager!) to get canned.
Preparing for unemployment, she has started an online used bookselling business in her spare time, selling books through both eBay and amazon.com. That’s why she was buying all these books (more than a thousand dollar’s worth by the end). When she finally loses her steady job, she intends to sell used books full time, traveling across the country, hitting library used book sales, thrift stores and garage sales to buy new stock. She won’t get rich, she knows, but she says she loves books, and travel, and this is a dream of hers to combine those two. And, in her new career, every Ding Dong or Whopper or convenience store munchie she buys while traveling will be tax deductible.
I have to say, the idea of being able to head out on the road, at your own pace and on your own timetable, and go wherever your heart leads you, is a tempting one for me. Of course, if I tried to imagine the details of her situation at all, the picture gets a bit less rosy – the bad food, the smelly stores and rude people, living lean when sales are down, sleeping in cheap motels or even the back seat of the car to save money, being alone at night in yet another small town – some or all of that might indeed be ahead of her, but she isn’t worried about that now. She’s gloriously happy and excited by life, and it shows.
Given the chance, and even forced to do so by circumstance, wouldn’t we all be willing to leave behind the computer screen and the telephone and day planner and interoffice memos, and just fly away singing? At least on some days I think we just might, and damn the odds.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Yes Virginia, There Is a Santa Fe
The Muley family is heading out tomorrow on the second leg of our World Vacation Tour 2006. This time, we'll be seeing some sights in New Mexico -- Santa Fe, Taos, Albuquerque -- with the Muley grandparents. The crew that all rode together in a van last summer for a week in Branson is back on the road! I'll try to post about our crazy adventures when I return in a week or so. Ya'll take care.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Twelve Flags, Seven Days, One Hearse
As I mentioned in my previous post, the Muley family took some time off over Spring Break to do a little traveling around Texas. We went with another family from our church we're good friends with and who have girls around the same age as our two daughters.
We made the daring, possibly insane, decision to visit both of the Six Flags Over Texas parks in the state within seven days of each other. We began with a one-day trip to Six Flags in Arlington, where we had to go to pick up our new season passes. Six Flags must be in need of some quick cash, because they have a deal now where you can buy a season pass for the price of a one-day admission. Consequently, there were a bajillion people at the park, most of them new season pass holders like us.
The funniest sight I saw in the Arlington park was one of the musical acts. This was during spring break, and apparently someone in park management figured, "Hey, we'll have oodles of head-bangin' college and high school kids here on Spring Break. We need a band they'll like." So, they hired an aging baby boomer heavy metal band that played songs such as "White Wedding" at a volume that almost jammed the radar at nearby DFW Airport. Here is the band in their full rockin' glory:
Actually, they weren't all that bad. The big problem was that the park officials apparently decided it was okay to place this 100 decibel gang of bangers onstage at the edge of the young kiddie section of the park, right between the log flume ride and the Spongebob Squarepants 3-D Theatre. As a result, there weren't too many screaming college chicks around rushing the stage, but there were a lot of deaf old people and exhausted moms with baby buggies, glad for a chance to sit on a bench, who made up the crowd. Don't they look as though they might form a mosh pit and start tearing off their clothes any minute?
Have you gotten "fed up" with the high prices they charge for food at amusement parks? We have, so we were looking for culinary bargains at Six Flags. We finally found a great deal on some incredibly inexpensive food near the koi pond.
We returned home, and after a few days back in Waco we took off again, this time to Six Flags Fiesta Texas in San Antonio. This is the best Six Flags park in Texas, in our opinion, because the rides are better and it's usually less crowded. There was nothing weird to report at Fiesta Texas, except that they asked me to join their latest publicity campaign. (Uh, I'm the one on the left...)
I did get one final laugh out of the trip, although it wasn't at Fiesta Texas. I was doing some browsing at a Borders bookstore while the rest of the crew was out clothes shopping, and when I left and got in my car, I noticed an old hearse across from me in the parking lot.
Now, a retired hearse being put to use as personal transport is not all that uncommon, but what got me to laughing was the vanity license plate attached to the front:
Today's quote:
"It is impossible to travel faster than the speed of light, and certainly not desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off."
--Woody Allen
We made the daring, possibly insane, decision to visit both of the Six Flags Over Texas parks in the state within seven days of each other. We began with a one-day trip to Six Flags in Arlington, where we had to go to pick up our new season passes. Six Flags must be in need of some quick cash, because they have a deal now where you can buy a season pass for the price of a one-day admission. Consequently, there were a bajillion people at the park, most of them new season pass holders like us.
The funniest sight I saw in the Arlington park was one of the musical acts. This was during spring break, and apparently someone in park management figured, "Hey, we'll have oodles of head-bangin' college and high school kids here on Spring Break. We need a band they'll like." So, they hired an aging baby boomer heavy metal band that played songs such as "White Wedding" at a volume that almost jammed the radar at nearby DFW Airport. Here is the band in their full rockin' glory:
Actually, they weren't all that bad. The big problem was that the park officials apparently decided it was okay to place this 100 decibel gang of bangers onstage at the edge of the young kiddie section of the park, right between the log flume ride and the Spongebob Squarepants 3-D Theatre. As a result, there weren't too many screaming college chicks around rushing the stage, but there were a lot of deaf old people and exhausted moms with baby buggies, glad for a chance to sit on a bench, who made up the crowd. Don't they look as though they might form a mosh pit and start tearing off their clothes any minute?
Have you gotten "fed up" with the high prices they charge for food at amusement parks? We have, so we were looking for culinary bargains at Six Flags. We finally found a great deal on some incredibly inexpensive food near the koi pond.
We returned home, and after a few days back in Waco we took off again, this time to Six Flags Fiesta Texas in San Antonio. This is the best Six Flags park in Texas, in our opinion, because the rides are better and it's usually less crowded. There was nothing weird to report at Fiesta Texas, except that they asked me to join their latest publicity campaign. (Uh, I'm the one on the left...)
I did get one final laugh out of the trip, although it wasn't at Fiesta Texas. I was doing some browsing at a Borders bookstore while the rest of the crew was out clothes shopping, and when I left and got in my car, I noticed an old hearse across from me in the parking lot.
Now, a retired hearse being put to use as personal transport is not all that uncommon, but what got me to laughing was the vanity license plate attached to the front:
Today's quote:
"It is impossible to travel faster than the speed of light, and certainly not desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off."
--Woody Allen
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