It’s time to get out of Dodge. This is one of my dining room windows this morning (the one by the air conditioner vent.) See the steam on the outside of the window? That’s because it’s nice and cool INside, and miserably hot OUTside. Heat indexes of 105-110 again today. I think they said we’ll have 11 straight days with heat indexes over 100. (Not so bad if you’re in the desert, downright miserable if you add humidity to it.) So tomorrow, we’re heading to the mountains where it’s cooler during the day and delightfully chilly during the night. Perfect weather. I’d stay the whole summer if I could, but we’re just staying through the Fourth of July weekend. (No, this isn’t just because of the weather right now. We’ve had this planned. But good timing, right?)
When you go on vacation, do you like to “Do” or “Be”? A Do-Vacation is where you go with the purpose of doing a lot of things. Perhaps it’s a new place to you and you want to fully explore everything that you can when you’re there. You’re on the go most of the time. You take a bazillion photos and collect memorabilia along the way. You come back from that trip and say, “We had an amazing time and saw so many cool things!” You might not be rested and relaxed, but you’re invigorated in other ways. I’ve been on some great Do-Vacations.
On the other end of the spectrum is the Be-Vacation. Maybe you’re going to a place where you’ve been before, and your life has seemed so crazy busy lately that you just want to get there and “be”. You want to chill out and stop all of the “doing” that you’ve had going on in your life lately. You hang out, you catch up on sleep, you sit with a cup of coffee and contemplate things, and you don’t need many photos of the occasion. You come back from this trip feeling rested, relaxed, and ready to jump back into things again.
Which do you prefer? I imagine that sometimes you like to DO and sometimes you like to BE. Sometimes in the same trip! We’ve been going to this same place in Colorado for years and years, since my parents have a place out there to stay in. I am looking forward to relaxing and having no set schedule for a bit. I look at our Colorado vacations as mostly Be-Vacations. We pick a few things to Do as well, but my overall goal is to Be while I’m out there. (That doesn’t mean we just sit around. There is plenty of knitting, movies, cooking, shopping, swimming and walking. But it’s a very relaxed pace.) We leave at 7 am tomorrow morning. Of course my clothes are not packed. And of course my knitting projects have been packed since Saturday. Priorities.
I’ll be updating the blog once in awhile while I’m out there, as well as checking in on Ravelry and sorting through a few emails. But I won’t do too much “Do-ing”, so as not to interrupt my “BE-ing”. The Loopy Elves will keep your orders shipping out in a timely manner. If you need anything, feel free to email Susan (susan AT theloopyewe DOT com) or call in. Susan and her family have just spent a week out there in Colorado and I’m sure she’ll need lots of emails to feel like she’s back in the game again here at Loopy. (Don’t tell her I said that.) If you check the blog sometime tomorrow, I’ll show you a photo of my most unfavorite spot in the middle of Kansas. It gives me the creeps. Later this week, I’ll do the drawing for this month’s blog contest and will announce the Winners of Wollmeise.
Sneak Ups? We’re planning on them this week and next week, if all goes as planned!
Sheri ifyoucouldchoose,wouldyourathermostlyDOorBEonvacation?
Last year my parents gave us a trip to a resort in the Adirondacks for our 25th anniversary. The perfect do and be vacation. For the do we got to visit museums and hike trails, kayaks and canoes were also available. But the be was that our cabin had a wonderful porch overlooking a lake, and breakfast and dinner came with the room. Just walk over to the dining hall and enjoy. It was the best vacation ever!
I want t o BE , unfortunately the rest of my family wants to DO. We try to have a mix of Be and Do when we vacation.
Have a great time
Sheri, What a coincidence! I leave at 7AM tomorrow also! Well, my 7AM is east coast time, so I am a little ahead of you!
I am headed to Jackson Hole, WY/ Yellowstone. I have never been to either. I am so excited to leave!!
I am an absolute Do-er when it comes to vacation, unless I am at the beach, then I am a Be-er.
This trip will be nonstop “do-ing”
Safe travels!
Oh man – what I wouldn’t give for a BE-cation right now. Have a great time on yours!
Have a wonderful break sheri, personally i prefer to ‘be’ on vacation. I don’t make plans to go anywhere or do anything specific but if the mood strikes then we go do something but mostly it’s viewed as time to just be with each other and relax.
A BE-cationer here! That is, if we could/would ever actually TAKE one.
We never got in the habit, as taking an-honest-to-God real vacation causes dh’s mom to have a hissy fit because we didn’t go see her or invite her on our vacation….We have actually taken a whole two one-week vacations in nearly 20 years of marriage – once a week in the Outer Banks, and a year or so later a week to visit a friend who had moved to Phoenix – everything else is wrapped up in visiting family (which doesn’t count as a do- or a be- cation…).
So, since I’m now working for my son’s small Montessori school, and thus have summers “off”, I’m endeavoring to have a be-stay-cation for part of this summer. People keep finding things I need to do. Sigh.
Enjoy your trip!
Be – even when we go somewhere. Life is too hectic in everyday life to be busy on vacation, so we go somewhere and relax. In fact, some of my favorite vacations are those where we simply stay at home and I can read or knit to my heart’s content. My other favorites are to set up a campsite for a week.
This year my vacation is my daughter’s wedding – I think this means we’ll be having a Do vacation.
Be? As in busy like a bee?
Definitely do-ers, although vacations are scarce lately. Funny that you mentioned this though, I was JUST thinking this morning how badly we need a vacation to really just be.
Have a great trip!
And please send some of that heat to the Northeast!
I am a vacation BE-er, but having small children (ages 4 and 1) means that I have to change modes to DO-er. We leave for a week in Branson this Saturday. Sure to be filled with lots of doing. But I am ever hopeful for just being. I have plenty of knitting, reading and podcasts picked out with the best of intentions. I’m guessing the best I’ll get is a couple of hours poolside.
have a great time!
I’ve loved the “be” vacations ever since I began teaching. The school year takes so much out of me that it’s heaven to “run away” and do nothing for a while. It seems like most days I’m always “do”ing – vacations are where I remember there’s more to life and attempt to just enjoy being there.
We usually try to do both on a vacation. We schedule a couple of things and let the rest just happen. Our best vacation ever was when we went to England with hotel reservations for only the first two nights and last week of a 3 week vacation. It was terrifically relaxing. We found a fantastic resource there that we would never have seen here for places to stay and we found some really interesting small castles we’d never have heard about if we hadn’t just been meandering. ‘Course that was before everyone had a website which I think does make it easier to tell what you might want to see.
I say, stay inside and knit! Don’t go out if you don’t have too, wowsa that’s HOT!
I like to just BE on vacations with a little bit of doing. We have 4 young kids under 10 so we’re always running somewhere. Its nice to be able to just chill. We’ll take the kids out and do a few things, but not a whole lot.
Since I spent my practically my whole working life traveling, my favorite vacations are the stay-at-home kind!
Hope you and your family have a wonderful, relaxing trip. We will miss you!
I have always been a DO vacation person. How much can we cram into one day!?! My husband however, is totally a BE person. How little can we move while lounging on the beach!?! I found that when the kids were small, the BE vacations just worked better. Now they are older and can DO more, but of course I am older too and am more content to mix in some BE time, LOL.
We are on a do-be vacation right now. We are in No. California. In Trinidad just 12 north of Eureka. Tried to visit a yarn store today but they are closed on Mondays..duh..brought loopy with me so will send some pics visiting the Redwoods. Tomorrow we go hiking for a while..we like to BE, and DO also in the same trip. At least this time. Brought my knitting a sock & sweater…have a great vacation!!!
Our summer vacations tend to be “Be” vacations, especially since we’ve been going to the same place for so many years, whereas our not-so-frequent Christmas trips to the States fall more into the “Do” end of the spectrum, mainly because we have so many folks to see when we’re there. Now that the kids are older and more active (and itching to get away from their parents), we seem to be doing more no matter where we are or what time of year it is. Have a wonderful time, Sheri!
We used to have more Do vacations but lately have been adding Be days so that we don’t have to take a vacation from our vacation. :0) In a couple weeks we are taking a do, be, do, be, do vacation. Can’t wait! Enjoy your time away, Sheri! Our sweltering heat hasn’t started yet this year, and we are glad it has held off!
I’m definitely more a “be” than a “do” – especially with the past few months of work – downsizing of staff, picking up more work – the last thing I want to do is hustle and bustle when I’m on my vacay! That said, we are scheduling two fishing excursions during our vacation in Mexico, so I think we’ll have some balance. The rest of the time, I plan to be either in the pool or under a cabana, always with a frosty drink at hand! (and knitting in my bag!)
I’m a BE person. Of course , growing up all our vacations were more of the DO kind, but I’m learning now that all the doing was a way to keep us kids occupied.
Sheri,
I would love to have a vacation of any kind!
Since our honeymoon (eight years ago last March) we have not been anywhere that did not involve a hospital stay. (I have chronic stomach problems – we did get to go to Rodchester Minn. to the Mayo Clinic a couple of times).
We have 8 horses and 2 teenagers to take care of, and its hard to leave for even a day without throwing off their feeding schedule (thats the horses, not the kids).
I will be thinking of you and wish you a glorious, wonderful, relaxing super time!
I do however have an idea to take pictures of Loopy this summer (more about that later)
Heh. I wouldn’t be able to tell you if I like Do or Be vacations, because my last two vacations involved working at the local chocolate shop over the week of Valentines and packing our remaining stuff so we could be ready to move before our closing. They were not much like vacations at all, because they weren’t even Do vacations they were Errand vacations (I don’t really like Errand vacations at all).
I’m looking forward to my vacation in October, which will hopefully be both a Do and a Be vacation and have no errands at all.
We like Be vacations with a little dose of Do. Like when we go to Colorado some of the Do-ing is flyfishing…..but, because of the nature of fishing, there’s a lot of Be-ing included. This year we are going on a 5-day cruise. We will visit two ports, so we will have two days of Do-ing and three days of Be-ing.
I used to be a strictly “do” vacation kinda person, but in Janauary we went to a resort in Cuba. It was a new look at Cuba for me, as I used to go often with Senda Piana to Havana and spent a lot of time working in Havana and living in private homes. This year, with our 2 1/2-year-old daughter, we thought a nice visit to the beach would be easier. There is a lot to be said for just visiting one beach for a whole week!
I like BE vacations best because my life seems so hectic most of the time. We have one planned for August right before I head back to school. I can’t wait for the vacation, but I can wait a bit for school to start! 🙂 And your weather makes ours here in central Minnesota seem cool…but it’s humid here too: my glasses steam up when I step oustide!! Enjoy your vacation! 🙂
Haven’t done a “DO” vacation in quite a while. In the fall we take a long “BE” vacation that involves sleeping late, hiking in the autumn hills, and maybe visiting a winery or two…or not. Every time I think about planning a “DO” vacation, I feel tired.
We live far away from both families, so all of our vacation is spent visiting family. With a little one in tow, it’s a lot of do-ing. I want a grown up vacation where we can finally just BE.