Tag Archive for: Summer Vacations

Clicking Our Heels: Summer Vacation – Beach, Mountains, On the Road, or Simply a Staycation?

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Last month, the Stiletto Gang members shared where each most wanted to go when the world opened up again. Now, with summer here, people are making vacation plans. As always, each of us has a different idea for our perfect summer vacation – beach, mountains, on the road, or staycations.


Bethany Maines – Outdoors someplace sunny.  Could be the
beach or the mountain or my backyard, but I want ice cream, a nap, and some
sunshine.

Gay Yellen – Mountains. Hiking in a cool mountain forest
is the best break from summer in the city.

Mary Lee Ashford – My summer
vacation preference would be outdoors with a beach and a book! Staycations are
fun but I’ve been working from home since March 2020, so I am more than ready
to see some walls that aren’t my own. (1/2- Sparkle Abbey)

Shari Randall – I’d love to
go somewhere with great museums and theater. I live near a beach, so I’ll admit
it, I’m spoiled.

Linda Rodriguez – Anymore, I’m
a stay-at-home person most of the time, thanks to health issues. In summer, you’ll
find me inside in the air conditioning or sitting on my spacious porch, spinning
or knitting and chatting with my neighbors.

Anita Carter – Definitely outdoors. One of my favorite
vacations was when my husband and I traveled to Hawaii for 10 days. We island
hopped, had the best time at the beach, and hiking through the mountains and around
the volcanos. I’d love to go again. (1/2 Sparkle Abbey)

Debra H. Goldstein – I’m a beach
person – even if viewing the waves lapping the sand from an airconditioned
room. Of course, now that Broadway is going to be opening at the end of Summer,
I wouldn’t mind making a trip to New York part of my summer vacation.

T.K. Thorne – I have to see the ocean regularly or
something inside doesn’t get fed. Also, I live on a mountain, so I get my tree
and fresh air fix every day.

Debra Sennefelder – Staycation.
I really don’t like summer weather. I much prefer air conditioning.

Kathryn Lane – My husband and I spend the summers in the mountains
of northern New Mexico, near Taos, where we enjoy outdoor adventures as well as
watching wildlife drift by from our cabin deck.

Dru Ann Love – I like sightseeing various locations, so
outdoors. Staycations are good as well.

Kathleen Kaska – It’s the
beach for me – anytime.

Lois Winston – I much prefer a warm getaway in the winter,
but I’m not a beach person. I love exploring museums, ancient sites, and
foreign cities.

 

 

 

 

 

Clicking Our Heels – Our Favorite Vacation Spots

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Clicking Our Heels – Our Favorite Vacation Spots

It’s that time of year.  We’re all thinking about summer and that, invariably, leads us to considering where we would like to be if we could go to our vacation spot.  As usual, our answers are as varied as we are.

Dru Ann Love – My favorite vacation spot is any place where I am not obligated to do a thing.  I like the idea that I can go to a place and take one of the area’s highlight bus tours where the touristy attractions are pointed out to me while I sit, look and listen.

Bethany Maines – To be perfectly honest, every place I just visited is my favorite spot.  But the anything that has delicious food and cheap lodgings is the best.  M most recent favorite is Iceland.  Their butter is delicious.

Juliana Aragon Fatula – Stonehenge.  When I visited Stonehenge I had a river of electricity/magnetism run through my body and move my head physically toward the ground.  It was freaky/cool.  I wanted to stay all night and stargaze while lying on my back feeling the earth’s pull.  I had a similar experience at Chichen Itza, but it was a power pulling my whole body down to the ground.  I couldn’t climb the pyramid because my balance was wacked out.

Jennae M. Phillippe – The best vacation that I have actually been on:  Maui.  Best that I daydream about: an English cottage with lots of books and unlimited tea near a quaint village.

Linda Rodriguez – My favorite place I’ve ever visited was Oxford, English.  I felt as if I had come home.  I stayed there for two weeks and loved everything about it.  I think I need to write a series of books set in Oxford, so I can visit there for tax-deductible research every year or so.  Until then, there’s always Morse and Lewis on Netflix.

Debra H. Goldstein – Australia. When my daughter was studying abroad, I made a quick trip to visit her.  Between the beaches, lush greenery, rocky areas, I was impressed, but the most fun was seeing the countryside and the famous sites like the Sydney Opera House (we took the backstage tour at four a.m. – the two of us and a journalist from London) through my daughter’s eyes.  As she led me around the country, I realized we had reversed roles – she had become an adult.

Paffi Flood – My favorite vacation spot is Siena, Italy.  The entire city is the color found in the crayon boxes, and near one edge, a black-and-white marble cathedral rises from all the brown, and it’s absolutely stunning.

Sparkle Abbey – We’d have to say Laguna Beach, California.  Not only is it the setting for our mystery series, but I’s also just a great place.  It almost has a European flavor with all the wonderful shops, restaurants and galleries.  And then there’s a beach itself….

Marilyn Meredith – My favorite vacation spot is anywhere on California’s Central Coast.  I once lived close to the beach and I miss it.  Morrow Bay is a place we try to get to once a year.  My Rocky Bluff P.D. series is set in a small beach town, and I like to get energized by visiting similar places.

Kay Kendall – I cannot choose just one favorite vacation spot.  Here is my list.  Small to mid-sized European city in these countries:  the UK, France, Germany, Italy.  Plus these historic larger cities that really grab me:  Prague; Venice; St. Petersburg, Russia.

Summer Vacation Angst

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When I was a kid the first school assignment each fall was to write about my summer vacation. The only problem was my family didn’t go on summer vacations, not as a rule. We didn’t have the extra money and it just wasn’t something my parents were accustomed to doing. I come from a long line of people who work forty to sixty hours a week and the only vacations they took involved baling hay or the odd hunting/fishing trip. My summer vacation essays were short and generally avoided the assigned topic as much as possible.

Last year I combined three library events in Missouri with my vacation. My brother and I played tourist in the St. Louis area and despite the heat, had a great time. We went in the Arch and viewed the exhibits. My brother actually took the tram/elevator up to the top. I confess, I’m not crazy about heights or small cramped spaces. We were there the week after the tram had gotten stuck and riders had been stranded for a few hours. Just the thought of that was enough to keep me on the ground. I was perfectly happy sitting on a bench, reading, and waiting for my brother to return with photographs.

I’ve been thinking about where I want to go this year during my time off from my day job. Usually I just stay home and catch up on all the things I never get to during the rest of the year. You know – painting, cleaning out closets, cleaning out gutters, well, just cleaning in general. Nothing too exciting.

In July of 2001, my brother and I took a big trip. We flew to North Carolina, rented a car and spent a week on the Outer Banks. We saw all there was to see and then some – the Wright Brothers National Memorial at Kitty Hawk, Ocracoke Island and the Blackbeard Museum, the reenactment play of the Missing Colony of Roanoke, and the beach at Nags Head. A nervous flyer, it was my brother’s first and probably last airplane flight. We came home sunburned and happy, then less than six weeks later planes were crashed into buildings and life in the United States – especially travel – changed forever.

This year I don’t have a new book to promote (yet), so I won’t be planning my vacation around libraries and bookstores. If gas prices don’t hit $5 a gallon before the end of the month, I may drive to Branson, Missouri for a few days. Branson is a country music boomtown and home of the Silver Dollar City theme park. It’s a fun place if you don’t mind the heat and the summer crowds. I figure I can last about two days, maybe three, before I’m dying to come home.

I don’t know – it wouldn’t take much to talk me into staying home in the first place, investing in some new patio furniture, and reading a few dozen mysteries. Might even work on the next Evelyn David book! Okay, I’d probably have to do some painting and yard work too.

What about you? What was your best summer vacation? I promise you don’t have to write an essay about it if you don’t want to. There will be no grades assigned.

The Southern Half of Evelyn David