Trip #10

   This is the tenth time that C and I have packed our bags and headed east into Door County. The first time we came here we had been married for about two months. I wanted to take C to this part of the country. I had travelled here a few times alone and liked it very much. I wanted to share it with C who had never been out here.
   We stay at the same place every year. The reason we do this is because it is not on a main road, but is not isolated. The room is large enough for us and all the things we bring which sometimes includes instruments. It has a lovely view of the sunrise in the morning with a forest below. There are four rooms so it is quiet and peaceful. We have met a lot of interesting people over the years. There was a funeral director and his wife, a young couple who were lawyers in Chicago. We met another couple who took their honeymoon here and were enjoying a long weekend while their children stayed with their grandparents. We met people from from all over the area and around Chicago. We've had many a good conversation with the innkeeper who is a very well read gentleman. He and his wife travel nearly every year. I enjoy asking them about where they went the previous year and where they intend to go next.
   One would think that in ten years we have seen everything there is to see and done most of what there is to do. Last year we found a state park that we didn't know about as well as a county park and another place to hike. It never looks the same two years in a row. There are still restaurants we've never been to, shops and galleries that we haven't explored. While the places look the same there are things that change. Every year the local businesses in one of the towns put up scarecrows and pumpkin faces. Sometimes the farmers will do interesting things with hay bales. New stores open up and sometimes stores that we have been to go out of business.
   We have something of a routine when we visit here. We spend one day in Green Bay. We spend one day hiking. We spend one day shopping. The other days we just head out and wonder around. In the evenings after dinner we hang out in our room. Sometimes we'll watch a football game. Sometimes we work on music. Sometimes I'll read while C takes a little nap. We relax.
   That's what it is for me. It's a time to relax. It's a retreat. It's a time when I can knit without a cat on my lap, a time when C can play his guitar and work on his music without distractions.
   Maybe it's not the most glamorous or the most exciting way to spend a week. I don't mind. When we get home, we are both happy and rested. Isn't that what a vacation is supposed to do?