travel – Mike’s Take

A blog is a wonderful thing. It is much like reading a book. It can transport you to so many places. In 2010, this blog rambled and roared all over the world…sharing pictures of places near and far. This year will be no different. So without further fuss…let’s get on that bus…

Well our first destination might be a little rough on a bus, a ship might be better. Almost anyone that lives in the Midwest in wintertime, like we do, often dreams of going somewhere tropical. I am no exception there, and I could see my family making a journey somewhere closer to the equator…like say Hawaii perhaps?

With its sparkling waters, beautiful scenery, and WARMTH, it would be a perfect destination for my family during this bitter cold snap we are enduring now. It will be perfect, and I will get to see my very first real live volcano too. That would be an awesome highlight. We will couple that with a cruise, and…wait a minute. We will need to own a small bank just to get there. First there would be the flight to the port destination, like say Los Angeles. That roundtrip flight would cost almost two grand for my family of five. Okay…so we somehow manage to get the money to go there. It would cost another eight thousand dollars to cruise there (Flying there would be about five thousand round trip). Yikes, looks like a destination closer to home is on tap for this family. Moving on…

Okay exotic far off islands are out for our family this year…how about something a little closer. Something within driving distance perhaps. How about Disney Land? We journeyed to Disney World in Florida when my oldest daughter was three after all. So why not try out the theme park on the other side of the country this time. Yeah that could be fun. It would certainly still be costly, but probably like half of what that tropical journey would cost.

This would be so cool. My kids would get to meet up with characters from some of their most beloved movies. They would get to see and play in areas they have only seen on television. Yes this would be very cool. Maybe they would get to have lunch with Mickey and the gang. Maybe they would get an autograph from Mike Wazowski.

Wait a minute. There was something about that other trip to Florida. Oh yeah, that’s right, my daughter was a little too young for that trip. She couldn’t go on a lot of the rides, and she doesn’t remember very much of that trip. Yeah, maybe it is a little too soon for a big trip to the Magic Kingdom. Sorry Mickey we’ll meet up in a couple of years, I promise.

Okay, so exotic tropical locations, and famous theme parks are out. Hmm…what do we have left then? Where can we go to get away from it all during this brutal cold. Maybe I am thinking about this all wrong. Maybe we shouldn’t try to escape from the cold and the weather. Perhaps we should just embrace it. After all we are a hearty folk here in the Midwest. We love our snow, and we make it a huge pastime. We build snow forts, we ski, we snowboard. We have polar bear swimming completions (wait…sorry even for me that is teetering into the are you freaking nuts files).

So a winter adventure to Colorado certainly sounds fun. Perhaps somewhere like Colorado Springs. Yeah, this could be fun. I have a pretty active family. We could all learn how to ski. The landscape is breathtaking. I love the mountains. We could catch a glimpse of Pike’s Peak. My wife and I could reminisce on memories from earlier in life since both of us have visited the area in our earlier years. It would be a chance to introduce the kids to somewhere new.

Yeah this sounds like it would be a pretty neat journey. The truth is this last destination is actually one of the ones we are thinking about for a winter getaway here in the very near future. Where ever we do end up going, it will be awesome because I will get to share it with my family. Any trip whether it is just down the street or thousands of miles is special just because of who is there with me.