theatokos | Vacations

Adam and I suck at taking vacations. We often sabotage ourselves - talking ourselves out of spending money on them, or only going to see friends or family, which is important, but defeats the purpose of a private vacation. I usually use my paid vacation time to get home to Alaska. Even then I am such a Planner and Doer that I make sure I get my fishing, hiking and socializing in. This year I'll be using my paid vacation as maternity leave.

At my last midwife appointment, the midwife pretty much told us to take a vacation. I've heard from one or two other new moms that spending some quality time together before the baby comes is crucial. I think we should take a vacation too. We never even took a honeymoon! I talked us out of that one....

But what do we do? Where do we go? We don't have a ton of money. We don't own a car. I'm thinking it might be nice to get out of town over Memorial Day weekend - 4 whole days! But everybody else will be vacationing then too. Our work schedules are super flexible; getting time off is no problem at all, but it would be nice to vacation on a paid holiday, rather than lose money! We can't go camping (no gear, not comfortable at this point in my pregnancy). Adam doesn't like the beach (at least, he doesn't like sandy beaches) and I don't like the hot, so I'd prefer to go north rather than south.

Any suggestions? Seriously. Vacations have me stumped.

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BC Canada is insanely beautiful! As is Vancouver.

Oh, I am a HUGE fan of Canada! I was trying to avoid flying, but now you've got me thinking..... I've never been to the Orcas Islands or other islands out off Washington State, despite living in western WA for many years. But see, here I go: thinking "plane fare + hotel + food.... can we afford that?? And what would we do?" God, I'm ridiculous!

I spent many nights dancing and drinking in Vancouver as a 19 yr old. God bless the lower drinking age and going to school 20 minutes from the border. :)

Just do it. Tracy gets caught up in the cost too....but we have NEVER regretted going on any vacations! NEVER!

If the cost bothers you have the hubby do it and not tell you the cost.

Check travel zoo for hot vacation deals.

What about a bed and breakfast or a "cabin" in Tahoe (Cabin being really a cottage with all the amenities)

If you come through Sac though on your way to or from I would love to meet up

Tahoe. That's a good idea too! I've been there once. With snow!

Strawberry lodge is nice
http://www.strawberry-lodge.com/

There is also Yosemite but I am not sure if the roads are open yet

Is there a city driving distance away that you could visit? Somewhere you can get a hotel room and just exist for a few days? Unless you want to make an itinerary...I've always enjoyed those kinds of trips where you can just get out and discover fun stuff and walk and get lost and not need a plan...because, once your kiddo's born, you need trips with a PLAN.

I want this to be low on the planning end of things. I'm a natural planner and get paid to plan stuff. Adam actually told me I'm not allowed to buy a guidebook! Smart man. We may just drive up or down the coast, find a bed and breakfast and read all day long. A weekend of long walks, lazy mornings in bed and evenings spend reading comic books wouldn't be so bad.

Oregon coast/wine country? Not too expensive, no sandy beaches to speak of, definitely not hot unless there is a freak weather accident.

gonna second the cabin/cottage ideas. As for places, Crater Lake (also in Oregon) is gorgeous and will be open late April/early May.

Here's a place: http://www.craterlakeresort.com/
No idea if they are good or not but when I camped at the lake I saw a number of these type of places.

Crater Lake itself:
http://www.uhh.hawaii.edu/~csav/gallery/decker/oregon_crater_lake.php
http://www.cs.uoregon.edu/research/paracomp/oregon/large/crater.lake2.jpg
http://www.travelblog.org/Photos/479928.html

We're starting to think about either the Lost Coast (north coastal CA) or Big Sur - two places we haven't been and not too far away. Adam told me today that he doesn't want to spend an entire day driving/traveling. Smart, since we will only have a long weekend. Have you been to either of those areas?

Big Sur we have been to. It's Central Coasty, so more wooded and green than the SoCal for sure and a nice place to spend a couple days. It's also somewhat expensive. We stayed in yurts at a wonderful place called Treebones. The yurts were very comfortable, but gave you a sense of being out in nature too. We had a beautiful ocean view the first day, but got fogged in the next few which we understood was par for the course (we were there in August, tho.) They've got the Henry Miller museum, if that's your cup of tea and a number of hikes, both gentle and more strenuous. Also beaches, but they are sandy, so natch. Restaurants were okay, but more pricey then good. If we went back, we'd probably bring our own food.

Okay - don't laugh - but when is Memorial Day? The end of May?

We could do a swap sometime - you stay in our romantic creekside cabin and we'll go stay at your city pad for a weekend! There is SOOO much to do in this area - hiking, good restaurants, boating, kayaking, Loch Lomond is 10 minutes from my house - maybe Adam doesn't like the beach, but the a romantic dinner overlooking the moonlit ocean may change his mind!

I know we still have work to do on our place and so it may not suit your luxury needs, but I have had friends stay for the weekend while we were away and they really enjoyed the quite romantic atmosphere.

Yosemite is always a good idea for getting away and just relaxing, plus the weather around Memorial day is so wonderful! We used yosemitepark.com (www.yosemitepark.com) to plan our vacation and it worked out wonderful.

Since you're up in NorCal, I've got to tell you that, Solvang is a wonderful place to go for a vacation. It's a little Danish town and it's really relaxed and quiet. They have cabins and cabin like hotels that don't cost too much, plus the tourist rent these bike cars which are 4 seater bikes that you ride on the streets like a little car. The town is actually a decent sized town but not too large. People mind their own business but they are super friendly and the weather around Memorial day is nice, it's usually about 75-80 during the day and 50 in the evenings. It's a really nice place to take a break and explore - plus you get a Danish history lesson and the food is magnificent. Lol ;x I would tell you about places down here in SoCal it's burning up around the end of May plus a lot of the hot spots are beaches (with SAND! ;x).

Yeah, lots of spelling and word usage errors - go me!

I'm a big fan of B&Bs, especially in cute little towns along the coast. The hubby and I stayed here (http://www.pescaderocreekinn.com/) for our wedding night and swung through Ferndale (http://www.victorianferndale.org/chamber/) on one of our first roadtrips together. Ferndale rocks. Watch out for the used book store, it had some great stuff when I was there.

I gotta say, the whole "drive up the coast and find a place to stay" is a good idea, especially if you do some research so y'all have an idea of what your options are. maybe have Adam do the research so you aren't tempted to do all the planning stuff. :)

This is looking more and more likely, both the coastal CA option and having Adam do the planning. I'm really really looking forward to it.

Actually May is going to be full of good things. The first weekend of May I'm going to Sonoma Co. for a yoga retreat, then the next weekend is Feri out in the woods (?). At the end of the month, this vacation! Yay!

And..... on June 7th, please save the date, baby shower/BBQ/birthday party. :)

Big Sur is beautiful.

Have you ever seen the Monterey Aquarium? Monterey is eh, but the aquarium is boffo. You will never feel the same way about jellyfish again.

I love jellyfish! I haven't been to Monterey or the aquarium. If we go south, we'll definitely have to stop there. Plus, it's a good thing to put in the back of my head for future road trips with the Pea. My goodness, I'm going to have a kid. To entertain and educate and lug around and take on vacations.

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