michigansandzilla wrote:
tragusa3 wrote:
Regarding the above comments...it is a crime against humanity if a family can't, at least once, take an extended time off to be together. If you thought outside the box, is it at all possible to make it happen once? .
Not at all possible unfortunately. Your situation is extraordinary. I've told my husband that if we were teachers, we would not be home all summer and it would be awesome! I'd go to the Pacific coast if I had that much time. Everything we plan has to be 16 days or less.
I'm a nurse and we get a max of 2 consecutive weeks off, no exceptions. And I can only do a 2 week trip at most every other year. We have to keep a certain number of employees staffed at all times and if we all left for 2 weeks in the summer, people would have no health care! We have to take turns as to who gets 2 weeks off, when they get to go, etc. I have one week off to go to the Black Hills this summer and even that was difficult to accomplish.
I can see us getting to the Utah parks, 3 days there and 3 back. But I don't see the Pacific coast area as feasible. The sequoias won't be seen by children but there is a lot of other stuff we can do.
Agree 100% with michigansandzilla.
Time and distance are limiting factors, with kids or without kids. I've been working all my life, and have never had time off longer than 2 weeks. Unless we flew somewhere, there are parts of this country we'll never see. That's why, if the kids (now adults) REALLY want to see some of these sites, they have the options now.
My daughter now lives in Kansas City Missouri. She now has a much better chance of taking her kids to some of these sites westward for her. For us, living in Indiana, much farther than Kansas is just not an enjoyable trip. I can't drive 20 hours straight any more. I need some sleep sometime!
My daughter, on the other hand, will probably never be able to take her (4) kids to Washington DC, or Virginia, or back to Norfolk or Charleston, SC where she was stationed in the Navy to show them some of the exciting sites there, (and there's a lot), simply because of the distance vs. time constraint. And flying a family of 6, is pretty much impossible for a young family with kids under 1 year old, 2, 4, and 6.
So just saying, as some have stated above, not everyone has the availability of unlimited time to travel for weeks on end. We do have constraints. We pick our vacation spots wisely, based upon time, location, and available funds. Some places will never be seen. Those who are fortunate to visit, we appreciate your photos. That's about the closest we'll ever get.