Vacation vs. Adventure

We have one compulsory rule when we vacation: There must always be an Adventure. Adventures find us. They are the obscure and random passage from the “planned” vacation to the “we-could-never-dream-up-anything-like-this” vacation. Adventures are always welcome, never anything you can find in Frommer’s guidebooks, but they make the memories we revive at family dinners. When our children were young, just going on vacation was an adventure, but the deeper we evolve into adulthood the grander the Trip becomes.

We’ve been in closed-to-the-public parlors in Versailles. Lost a boat at Lake Powell (always use an anchor). We were stopped at the border by a machine gun-rearing Federali as he asked our daughter on a date. (She declined.) We left two sons in Chinatown and lost two friends in Biarritz, France. We bartered for Fenway bricks in Boston. Were forced upon a bag of questionable clams from a gangster in Oakland and were doused with permanent orange curb paint in Mexico.
Plan your vacation but welcome Adventure when it finds you.

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