Watch out Motel 6

My family didn't travel too much growing up. We were poor and tight for money, but my parents always managed to get in a little vacation somewhere, whether to a condo in Park City for a few nights a year, or a quick road trip to CA. Both sets of grandparents lived in CA when I was younger, so I remember taking yearly trips out to LA to visit my grandparents, and occasional trips to Oregon to visit my Uncle Bill and my cousin's on the Smith side. We would load up our blue station wagon, or red van, or whatever vehicle we happened to own at the time, and bear the long and tedious drive for 11 hours before we were on "vacation". We rarely stayed in hotels because we were usually visiting family. But when we did stay in a hotel, it was the BEST part of the vacation. I didn't' care that the room was as big as the upstairs of my home. I didn't care that I shared a bed with my older or younger brother, or that I had to sleep on the roll-away bed. I wanted it that way! That was part of the vacation! The smell of the hotel hallways; the constant trips to the vending machines to buy some Twizzler's Nibs; the double trips to the ice machine for my mom, and waiting impatiently as my dad swam laps in the pool before we would play with us. Looking much like the picture below, I would roll in my little suitcase and my backpack into a hotel lobby, or a motel 6, or wherever we were able to stay was the greatest thing ever, with a big sign on my forehead that said "Look out Motel 6, my name is Kelly, and I am here on vacation with my family, and we are going to have the best time of our lives". And we did.

Now that I'm older, I understand things like "life" and "vacation" a lot better. As a tot, vacations were things I lost sleep over; it was as great as Christmas! I WAS GOING TO DISNEYLAND! I remember having trouble falling asleep for 4 or 5 days before we actually left. I would pack my suitcase 2 weeks in advance, and have everything ready to go for easy take-off.

I miss that exhilarating feeling.

I miss having something SO exciting in my life about to happen, that I lose sleep over it.

I miss thinking about vacations, because now, vacations are almost as much of a stress as not taking a vacation: the money spent, the time lost at work, the exhaustion of trying to relax, instead of just....relaxing.

And I had forgotten what it meant to treasure the tender-mercies of childhood memories in this busy, busy world until tonight, when I saw a young little tyke, much like myself, rolling her suitcase into the hotel lobby and down the hallway with a grin the size of Texas on her face and a sign on her forehead that said "Look out Best Western, my name is Kelly, and I am here on vacation with my family, and I am going to have the time of my life".