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purpleinopp

Your great vacation

A favorite past vacation? The most recent? One you're planning? What do you love to do? How do you get there? Do you enjoy pinching pennies or opening the wallet wide?

We always drive (I love my car, about equally to my plants!) I like to pinch pennies except on food - after we've eaten the snacks I brought in the cooler. A $30 dinner doesn't bother me if it's great, memorable, nice place. We don't use most amenities at a hotel (busy doing cool things nearby) so I like when they are priced separately. Also enjoy camping, where there's only a campfire for producing a meal. Our vacations are always about nature, family & friends, history. (Except when we go adults-only and tie one on in NOLA for a few days!) Not a fan of huge crowds, but once in a while, they're fun to join.

I'm a huge sucker for any "world's largest" and kitsch in general. The weirder it is, the more I want to see it. We went on an epic multi-state journey in June and made a ton of planned and unplanned stops at various places, to see things in person we'd spotted on satellite, and mentioned in reviews on travel forums. Also succumbed to our urges to investigate a couple signs and wander off the beaten path. That's fun stuff, IMO!

Just this past trip, we saw... a statue of "the mothman" in Point Pleasant WV, statue of Arnold Schwarzenegger in Columbus OH, a castle on a dirt road in SE OH and another one in Lexington KY, something called Ave Maria Grotto in north AL, Corvette Museum in Bowling Green KY, Indian cave in central OH, another cave in Horse Cave KY, presidential birthplaces and dwellings, a giant pink elephant (we exited the freeway just to see it, ended up seeing a guy who needed a jump start - what is it about us having the trunk so full that it will barely close that causes us to encounter these folks? - THEIR good luck I suppose,) a live topiary representation of a famous painting by Seurat in Columbus OH, 3-D sidewalk art, covered bridges, variously painted barns. Unforgettable sights!

Comments (15)

  • asleep_in_the_garden
    10 years ago

    I'll have to think on this and get back to you afterward.

    In the meantime here's a visual aid for you! :)

    Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:64584}}

  • Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    I had to check to see if you'd linked to one of the pics we put on TA. LMAO!! Never leave home without (consulting) it! Have you see it?

  • asleep_in_the_garden
    10 years ago

    Oh heavens no...Purp,..thing is I don't travel much. Still not sure if it's gonna be a childhood vacation I tell about or the one I'd LIKE to take someday...probably the latter.

    So having never seen this topiary naturally I had to do a search on it and presto!

    Really is neat now that I've seen it...If you hadn't said anything about it,I'd never know it existed!

    Thanks chick! :)

  • asleep_in_the_garden
    10 years ago

    Sometimes I go to the stream and sit and watch fish jump and birds bathe and all manner of natural activity that may be going on there on any given day. Not long ago I saw a mink on the other side patrolling the bank in and out of the water like some kind of surreal dream became reality before my eyes. Never seen one in the wild before. Just amazing...wish I had a camera with me but sadly I didn't.

    Today was kinda still so no wildlife in the pics but at least you will get the idea.

    To me it's a vacation,yaknow? :)

  • asleep_in_the_garden
    10 years ago

    A sandbar...

  • asleep_in_the_garden
    10 years ago

    Wicked roots!!

  • asleep_in_the_garden
    10 years ago

    Neat shot of roots...

  • asleep_in_the_garden
    10 years ago

    And this is how it starts looking after I've been there too long...

  • Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    Yes! Awesome thoughts & pics. I forgot the pic of the mothman before! In Point Pleasant, WV.

  • asleep_in_the_garden
    10 years ago

    Can't you just imagine some lunatic dressed up in a costume flapping around and pollinating garden beds in the park?

    That's awesome Purp! LOL

  • Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    Looking forward to spending the weekend with my Mom, son, niece, and various former family members from my niece's family for a few days in Raleigh. I found some quirky attractions on roadsideamerica.com we will pass near, and in Raleigh. Don't know which we'll actually capture (with a pic) but will report here next week. Possibilities include a giant acorn, statue of Andy & Opie, various giant furniture, a butt-kicking machine, giant sundial, world's largest fire hydrant, a giant peanut, 2 Daniel Boones & Dale Earnhardt. (Spell check knows Earnhardt, go figure!)

  • Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    Well poo, this got cancelled, no pics of this type forthcoming!

  • larry_b
    10 years ago

    Vacation, what's that? lol Seriously, when I worked full time I didn't have time for vacations. Now that I'm retired I don't have money for vacations.

    I do try to visit my mother once a year though, but I don't really consider that a vacation. My wife and I really do need to do some short one or two day vacations around Colorado. We live in a gorgeous state and we're really don't take advantage of it.

  • Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    Absolutely, Larry! Day trips, stay-cations, are perfectly wonderful.

    We spent heavily on 'the big' vacation last summer, though the memories are cherished. For this year, we've reserved a site for camping 3 different weekends, 2 in May, one in July, which will cost about 1/6 of the big trip last year - for all 3 of these camping trips. If your state parks have camping, it should be very reasonable. State parks in FL (where we like to go, we're less than 20 miles from the border) charge $24 for most camp sites. There's no restaurants to tempt us with $25+ plates, which we always go for when out in a hotel. It's just us, the beach, and whatever we bring with us.

    We did finally go to Raleigh last weekend. Romantic notions of taking pictures of quirky roadside attractions quickly vanished. Holy cow I'd forgotten how crowded it is in that part of the country. The 'scenic route' we tried between Charlotte and Raleigh was totally bogus, and full of traffic lights and big rig trucks, no more pleasant or bucolic than I-85. Loved visiting the people, but driving around Raleigh is not something I had any interest in until/unless we got hungry and wanted to go to a museum. Life's way too short to spend it sitting at traffic lights like those. I spent more time at those lights last weekend than I have in the whole past year living here.

    That's one thing we love so much about New Orleans (and camping, for that matter.) Park the car when we get there, then it doesn't move again until it's time to go home.

    What are folks' plans for this year?

  • Tiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Camping recently, St. Joe peninsula state park, FL. I think this pic pretty much sums it up. On any vacation, but especially at the edge of a time zone, things can get confusing, and you may not know what time it is, but it shouldn't matter, right?

    Does anybody really know what time it is?
    Does anybody really care?
    - Chicago

    Identical phones, on the same service.