Lake Cottages, Beach Cottages and Dreams of Vacation

What is more fun than dreaming of all of the destinations to which you want to travel?  The problem is...that there are just so many!

It's that time of year when it's time to start brainstorming a couple of well-deserved getaways, and my wheels have definitely been turning.  Just like in so many other situations in life, my problem is that I'm so overwhelmed by all of the choices that I can hardly get started with the true planning, reserving, etc.  I think I blame most of this on the Internet.  It's got incredible breadth, offering endless details on any niche vacation choice you could possibly make.  The endless pages of information, available at any time of the day, makes me think about what this process used to look like. 

I'm pretty sure years ago, when my family used to plan annual summer treks to Ocean City, Maryland, that all planning was done via snail mail and telephone.  There was nothing impulsive or quick about it.  Realtors sent my mom catalogs of available properties, we perused (and dreamed) and narrowed down our choices.  Then, it was telephone time for my mom, and she eventually settled on a place for us.  Even more, I remember the necessary and strict timing of arrival and departure and the painstakingly long waits (after an 8 hour drive) to pick up the keys at realtor offices.  This process, looked at from this time in my life, seems like it had to be time consuming and not very fun.  Nobody would be in a realtors office when the kids were gone to bed and the house was quiet.  So, I feel sure there was a need to juggle crazy kids, dinner preparations or some other domestic chore and phone calls to realtors.  Now, though, you can hop onto the Internet and look at whatever you want whenever you have a few quiet minutes to do so.  And, if those few minutes happen to fall in the middle of the night, you can still make just as much progress by submitting your inquiries or continuing your collection of favorites.  As far as reservations, payment and key exchanges, we now have sites such as vrbo.com and flipkey.com as well as the traditional realtor sites.  These allow you to do everything electronically.  And keys can be mailed or there are many places with keyless entries.      

In any case, despite being mired in this momentary vacation planning nostalgia and all of the choices and possibilities, we have successfully settled on two destinations.  Our smaller trip will be more like a "hold me over" sort of trip, and it'll be to Deep Creek, Maryland.  This destination is perfect for a getaway to the mountains of western Maryland, with lots of wildlife and nature, and a focus on relaxation.  Also, it's a mere 2 hours away, so it's super easy to head down for a weekend and keep things simple.  Yet, there are many attractions, shopping and restaurants to take in while there.  Our bigger trip will be to the sandy shores of the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  I'm really excited about this one because I haven't been to the ocean since living next to it a few years ago.  The cute little beach cottages we've found are cozy and right on the water's edge, so I see several glorious mornings of slowly sipping coffee and watching the sunshine dance on the waters of the Atlantic.  Both trips will afford us the ability to take the pups along, so everyone in the household except Lotus (sorry, buddy!) will be packing up for some much needed rest and relaxation.   

As with so many things, this round of vacation planning has made me realize how much things have changed over time.  It's so easy to only look at the present and forget the evolution that has had to take place for us to be where we are.  I would've never dreamed that my vacation planning would've been one of those things to make me appreciate that evolution.  That is, of course, unless we're looking at the evolution of gas prices...