Planning a vacation can be stressful, but I find it a lot of fun. Planning a vacation today is much different than it was thirty or forty years ago.

Today you have the luxury of the computer to get all the information you need. I remember when our young family of six planned a vacation to the Black Hills in 1989. You found a advertisement in a newspaper and sent for information about a campground or state park or things to do in a city and a few weeks later you got brochures and other material in the mail to look over. That particular trip we booked a cabin near Rapid City. The pictures on the brochure looked great and when we arrived and pulled up to our cabin, it was a dive! It looked nothing like the picture. That night a mouse was loose in our room and jumped into a waste basket and couldn’t get out. It was a memorable stay at that place.

Roxie and I work pretty well together in planning where to go and what we would like to do on a vacation. However, a few years ago I planned our trip to Medora, North Dakota to see the Medora musical and Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the Badlands. She was surprised at how well I did in planning our little get away. It was one of our favorite vacations. Medora is a wonderful place and the highlight of that vacation was driving through the national park and coming upon about 50 wild horses. We were basically the only vehicle around and we stopped and just watch those beautiful wild horses come right up to our car and then run along side of us. Roxie took some great video of those horses. That vacation was well planned and we had a lot of fun.

Planning a vacation with children is much different than planning a trip for just you and your spouse. Since our children have left home Roxie and I have done some spur of the moment trips which are fun also. A few years ago, we got in our car and just started driving and not knowing what or where we were going. No motel reservations or any sort of plans. We ended up in Northfield Minnesota the first night, found a motel and walked around downtown Northfield and found the Jesse James museum. In the 1870’s he robbed a bank in Northfield, or at least tried to, but the citizens fought back and shot the Jesse James gang on main street. The next day we went to Stillwater and did some sight seeing around town. Then we drove to Wabasha, Minnesota along the Mississippi River. We went there because of the movie, Grumpy Old Men. Our surprise in Wabasha was the National Eagle Center. What a beautiful place to learn about the bald eagle and see the national bird up close. So that vacation we didn’t do much planning at all and it worked out great.

This last month we have been planning a trip to the North Shore and Duluth. We have been there before but this time we are also going into northern Wisconsin to see the Apostle Islands and stay in Bayfield, Wisconsin. I had a friend tell me about their trip to the islands on Lake Superior and she suggested we go check it out. So we are. Every reservation I have made has been online. I have booked motels, cruises and tours. I am frustrated at the cost of motels in tourist areas during the summer time, unbelievable prices to sleep in a room.

I am usually a guy that likes to wing things, but this vacation is well planned. I don’t know if I like that or not. My wife likes that, she likes to know where and what we will be doing. So for her peace of mind, everything is planned for every day we are gone. Is that a good thing or not, I don’t know. I guess we will find out.