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| My friend Amanda, sister Kristy, and parents (not pictured) helped me celebrate my birthday. |
August is my one full month off
from my job as a tutor of children grades five through eight. It’s the month I
celebrate the day I was born (by eating at Cheddar's, of course), and it’s also the month in which my family
typically tries to go on vacation.
This year was no different. My
parents, sister and I packed up our Tahoe and headed down the road. Up the
road, technically, since our destination was north of our home state of Texas.
Where were we headed? Indiana
and Michigan.
My challenge? Not getting
distracted by the landscape whizzing by my window.
Yes, that’s right. I brought my
laptop. I gladly sacrificed some of my landscape-watching, book-reading, z-z-z-z-catching time in order to get a
good jump on the edits necessary to make my manuscript shine. That task proved
quite daunting, but I steadily made progress on my work in progress (WIP). No,
I didn’t get it completed. Even though I didn’t meet my goal 100%, I couldn’t
be too disappointed in myself. I could have taken the entire month off,
claiming it as family time, which would have been true on all accounts. But I
chose to use the many hours in the car to my advantage.
Did I have fun on this trip, or
was it just a working vacation for me? Oh, I had fun. Lots of fun.
The reason my family chose to
visit Indiana was to spend some time with my dad’s aunts, uncles and cousins.
My two great-aunts we met last summer, and of course we wanted to make more memories with them. This year, though, we also planned on meeting my
second-cousin and another uncle and his wife. Since the cousin’s brother was in
town, we got the bonus treat of meeting his family, including his
granddaughter. When puzzling it out, I realized that she was my fourth-cousin.
That meant we had four generations—from my great-aunt to my fourth-cousin—at
Golden Corral that day! How neat is that? It was so wonderful to share a meal
and fellowship with these relatives I’ve only known for one year. Hopefully
we’ll get another chance to gather again soon.
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| JoAnn Durgin |
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| Vigo County Historical Society Museum |
From there, we took a side trip
to Vigo County. This portion of the trip was sweet because I actually got to go
“on location” for the manuscript I took along to work on. I had the opportunity
to visit the small town I had chosen as the hometown for my characters. Also, I
got to stop by the Vigo County Historical Society Museum to see what
information they had on the town I had chosen. Though the file on the tiny town wasn't very large, the information was wonderful. It confirmed to me that the town was a tight-knit
community that cared about each other . . . just like in my story!
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| West Michigan Glass Art Center |
Once we reached Michigan, we
stayed in Kalamazoo, just so we could say we’ve been there. The next morning,
we went downtown to this neat place called West Michigan Glass Art Center. When
we told the man that greeted us we were from Texas, he offered to give us a
tour of the place. The art of working with glass is quite impressive and takes
so much patience and time to learn. From creating stained glass to bead making to
flameworking to glassblowing, they do it all—and a little bit of everything in
between. The thing that surprised me the most was the fact that they leave the
huge furnace on 24/7 to keep it at the correct temperature for their art form.
The only time it’s shut down is when it needs to be replaced every five or so
years.
Besides visiting Kalamazoo,
another of my family’s goals while in Michigan was to put our feet in Lake
Michigan. (We had done the same in Lake Erie in the summer of 2012.) We
accomplished this goal while making some new ones. There are numerous
lighthouses along the lake, and we decided to see some of them. We enjoy taking
pictures of them as they are typically very beautiful. We weren’t disappointed.
The lighthouses we went to were gorgeous with breathtaking views of Lake
Michigan from the grounds.
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| West Point Lighthouse |
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| Two Harbors Light Station... now a B&B too! |
At that point, we were barely a
week into our two-week trip. We didn’t really have any further plans of things
to see or do. My dad surprised us by suggesting we travel down the coast of
Lake Michigan, into Wisconsin and up into Minnesota, stopping by Lake
Superior before heading home through Iowa. That would give us three more states
on our quest to see all 48 continental United States over the years, leaving fewer
than 10 states to accomplish that goal.
In Wisconsin and Minnesota, we saw a few more
lighthouses, including Split Rock which was such an amazing sight from the
lookout point up the road. While we were putting our feet in Lake Superior, a
ginormous freighter left the port. I didn’t realize just how humongous those
things really were until I saw this one up close. Talk about daunting!
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| Split Rock Lighthouse |
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| Wisconsin Point Lighthouse |
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| My sister Kristy and friend Jessica Yes, that's a bear in the background. We were at the Tulsa Zoo. |
The last day of our trek, we
stopped in Oklahoma to visit a dear friend whom we met at the beginning of
summer. Her car had broken down on the way home from college, so my family had
taken her home to Houston—six hours away from our hometown. We stayed in touch
over the next couple of months, and my family decided that hanging out with her
for a day would be a great way to end our vacation.
All along the trip, we met great
people who each had a story to tell. Oh, the books I could write with such
inspiration! At most, if not all, of the hotels we stayed at, the staff were
friendly and ready to help their clients. At restaurants, the waitresses were
often overworked but still managed to wear broad smiles across their faces.
Some of the people I met were having bad days, so I smiled and greeted them
warmly, hoping to add a little sparkle in the midst of their stressful moments.
To many of these people, I gave a bookmark of one of my favorite authors, along
with my own blog information. If you are one of them, thank you for your
kindness and friendly smile. Thank you for visiting my website. I am thrilled
you’re here! Please leave me a comment or friend me on Facebook or Twitter.
This summer’s vacation was
amazing. I’m so grateful for every experience and each person who crossed my
family’s path. Many more people and things and experiences than I could
possibly mention made the trip one never to forget. My family and I had a
memorable, enjoyable time. And I even made progress on my WIP!
What helped make your summer special? Was it the people around you? A
family vacation? What will you remember most about Summer 2013?
