I would like to travel more than just around the coffee pot looking for the handle. I need to see the American West, the British Isles, and Tuscany. But I find the
idea of
travel tiring, and the essence of vacation for me is not having to think about anything more taxing than where I want to go for dinner, and whether I want to have cocktails first.
In that respect, I think I had my ideal vacation about ten years ago, in the mid-1990s. It was one week in Provincetown, Massachusetts, at the time when July turns into August. The weather was ideal; the thing I love about P'town weather at that time of year anyway is that typically you have bathing-suit weather in the afternoon and "leather weather" at night.
Anyway, this particular year, I was staying at one of the few guest houses that had an in-ground swimming pool. I had a room with air conditioning and a private bath, and my room was right off the pool: I stepped out of my door and I was on the pool patio. It was wonderful. I'd get up in the morning, pull on some swim trunks, go for a brisk swim, then go for my coffee. Afternoons I would lie by the pool reading murder mystery novels--the sort of thing I have no time to read except on vacation. Evenings I would go to dinner, then go out in search of adventure.
After the bars closed, I'd go back to my room, then take a quick, quiet swim before going to bed. Mornings I would get up and start the whole cycle over again. It was very, very relaxing, nothing to worry about, nothing to think about--the essence, for me, of
vacation.
