Tuesday, May 23, 2006

I need a vacation

I've been working at Comp Mental Health for almost 6 month's now, and I'm starting to think "vacation". Unfortunately, there is no paid vacation with my job. They justify screwing us out of vacation time because we are "contract employees" and are hourly rate is so high. Regardless, we are welcomed to take off as much, or as little time as we want, we just don't get paid for it.
Lately, I've been feeling "burned out". This isn't the first time, and I usually get over it. Last weekend, I just wanted to veg and start to look forward to a vacation. I promised Wah-Wah when we got married that we would have at least one nice vacation a year. This year we were planning on going to Oregon to visit my parents with their free airline tickets they were providing. But then my parents said they were going to save our airline tickets for an Alaskan cruise next year. It's their 40th anniversary and they wanted to fly everyone to Alaska. Suddenly we were no longer had our free tickets to Oregon. Wah-Wah decided she wanted a vacation this year without my family.
For several weeks, we've been trying to figure out where to go this year with 2 young kids. We've decided someday we'll do Disney, but when the kids are older. We thought of flying out to Vegas and maybe driving down to the Grand Canyon, but we weren't expecting airline tickets to be as expensive as they are. So now we are looking at where we could drive.
Wah-Wah really wants to go to the Black Hills in South Dakota. Almost 25 years ago, I swore I would never set foot in South Dakota again (I lived in Sioux Falls for 2 years and absolutely hated it), but I always liked the Black Hills. There is Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Crystal Cave, Devil's Tower, and Custer just to name a few things to see.
I'm a little worried about the drive which is about 10 hours. The kids have never been in the car longer than 4 hrs. The drive itself looks boring with nothing along the way. Personally, I've never driven longer than 6 hours so I hope I can handle it.
Nothing is final yet, since we are trying to keep the same vacation time as our babysitter, but South Dakota is what we are leaning toward. It would be nice if we lived closer to something exciting (say the Corn Palace or Wall Drug)

5 comments:

shakedust said...

It may be ten hours, but between here and there is Iowa, Nebraska and a large percentage of South Dakota. Talk about exciting driving. :)

roamingwriter said...

South Dakota is pretty when you get there. My parents did the whole rushmore, badlands tour my senior year of high school and I didn't go. Definitely gotta get up there sometime.

Don't worry about the drive. Get some music, some books on tape. The first hour seems long then the day just happens.

f o r r e s t said...

I actually like driving throught the flat lands. It's easy and stress free. Driving through the ozarks is crazy with all those bend and turns. You have to focus the whole time and I feel a little on edge. I like setting the cruise control and looking out at the vast landscape and farm vernacular with some good music and conversation.

windarkwingod said...

Books on tape! Visit your local library... this saved my behind during our long fund-raising trips. Also, I can sympathize being caught between your parent's vacation visions and your immediate family needs...

windarkwingod said...

just looked at Trekkies paradise... Your boy is growing!!!