It was 30 years ago that we took our first family fly-drive holiday at March Break. Over the next 17 years it became an annual event – up until Sarah went to Guelph it was the three of us. After that we had 4 years of just Maria and me. Then Sarah rejoined us for a couple of years, skipped one, then finished with us in 2004.
At first we did the US Southwest – Texas and then Arizona. Then we moved further afield – 4 times to Britain, once to Amsterdam. In 2000 we visited New York City. Then we finished with a flourish – Paris (above,) then Brussels, a week long Italian extravaganza in 2003, and finally back to Paris to help Sarah polish her French for her government training.
Although we enjoyed all our experiences, I must say that travel on March break was a hassle. The airports were crowded, flights were costly and the weather often sucked. In 1993 we just managed to escape before The Storm of the Century and we went to the only place – Arizona – that didn’t get affected by that storm. Once we got stuck in Phoenix because our connection in Chicago was scrubbed by another snow storm. It was better if we went to Europe but sometimes it was still dicey getting away from Toronto.
Since we’ve retired we have gotten a bit more civilized. We try to travel in the shoulder seasons – May/October – and that way the weather is better for flying. Also a lot of our trips these days are by ship so we at least cut down on the amount of air travel. We also have longer holidays – no more cramming everything into a week.
I remember our first Texas holiday we tried to do too much and underestimated the size of the state we were visiting. I think we drove over 1500 Km that week – we hardly got out of the car it seems. Later on we drove less and enjoyed it more. In our European holidays we didn’t drive at all.
Planning wasn’t as easy before the Internet. I can remember buying week old copies of the London Telegraph at the smoke shop in georgetown – just so we could see what was playing in the London West End theaters. What, no Google?
Most of those trips were before digital cameras so I have a lot of photo albums that are bulky but fun to thumb through with our grandkids. It was fun to collect postcards and restaurant bills and put everything together in an album at the end of the holiday. The photo above was taken with my old Nikon FE and scanned back in 2002.
It sure hurts to look at my 30 year younger self though. Time has a habit of doing that to you.