The Reluctant Vacationer

Wallace was a reluctant vacationer. In the first ten years, when we lived in Chicago, we had very little moneys. After he went to work for Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company and was transferred to Detroit, he made enough that I didn’t have to work. Also, he was entitled to three weeks of vacation time each year. He seldom took any time off.

The second year in Detroit, Wally promised our son, Karl, to take him to see the U. S. Constitution, the sailing ship moored in Boston Harbor. (Karl was precocious, already interested in miliary history at eight-years old.)

Two days before we were to leave, Wally tried to cancel the trip, saying we could not afford the expense of motels and restaurant meals. The next day I went to Sears and bought a tent. When Wally came home from work that day, I showed him the tent set up in the back yard. I said, “We can afford to go camping. We’re leaving in the morning.”

The kids loved camping. Wally hated it. At our campsite in Miles Standish National Forest, six-year-old Martha drew a picture of her Dad sitting on a folding stool and reading a book while she splashed in the nearby pond. Back home in Michigan, a neighbor asked Martha how she liked camping. Martha said, “I liked it except for the underground plumbing.”

The next year my parents were going to a convention in San Diego. They invited our family to go with them. Wally said, “I can’t take time off from work to go to California.” “Okay,” I said, “The kids and I will go without you.” Wally called every night, berating me in Tucson and San Diego for going without him, then turning up in person at my friend’s house in San Francisco. It was funny how he not only was able to take time off, but also the money to fly to San Francisco. We camped in Yosemite and at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Wally paid for his return flight to Detroit from Albuquerque.

Wally was transferred from Detroit to Dallas. I persuaded Wally to take us on a family vacation in New Mexico. (I always wanted to see New Mexico.) After one night at Santa Fe’s beautiful (but expensive) La Posada, we set up the tent on the mountainside in Hyde Park.

The kids were thrilled to ride horses through the forest with a real, live Indian as a guide. Karl and Martha fed crumbs to the little chipmunks who overran our campsite. Wally became angry when the children’s pets broke in our food box and helped themselves to more of that delicious people food. The kids and I laughed at the chipmunk’s ingenuity.

In the four years we lived in Texas we took one other vacation. Wally wanted to “get away from it all.” We drove through the desert of West Texas. At Marathon, a “last gas” stop, we filled the tank and headed south. After 100 or so miles of nothing, no other cars on the road, no ranch houses, no even a lonely cow, we came to a sign, “Welcome to Big Bend National Park, campground 40 miles.”

The campground was so crowded we could listen to people whispering in the next tent. Young people, on spring break from the University of Texas, spread sleeping bags under the stars. My kids had a good time in Santa Elena Canyon, where Karl and Martha played in the Rio Grande. Although the river was only two-feet deep, three-year-old David was afraid. He found a three-foot-wide puddle and joyfully splashed around in it, as if it were a backyard plastic kiddy pool.

Then Wally was transferred to Pennsylvania, and we took that trip to Prince Edward Island, which Wally aborted after the first week. claiming fictitious car trouble.

He continued to say, year after year, “I can’t take time off.” and “We can’t afford to take a vacation.” That was okay. The next year the kids and I went camping on the Appalachian Trail – and left Wally at home.