Taking One day Trips

Taking one day trips is a popular thing that my family enjoys doing. We always take at least one in the fall up to Gay Mills in Wisconsin.  We always go with two other families there, and take my aunt and uncle’s SUV so we can all go together, which makes it all the more fun. It’s so pretty up there especially in the fall with the leaves turning. Once you get up there; there’s a festival and different apple orchards that you can go to along this one road. One of our favorite shops is the Sunrise Orchard.  They have amazing apples and samples, such as apple cider, caramel apples, apple donuts, and many other delicious apple treats that we enjoy. They also have a lot of different fun activities that occur there. When we were there they were handing caramel apple suckers out, they had a character drawing, coloring section, and they were having magic tricks and many more fun things.  

                There are many different orchards that you can stop at or you can also go pick your own apples.  We never have really done that because other family members have and they always have a blast. You go out in a big field and pick the delicious apples off the beautiful trees. But if you would want to pick you own apples then you would have to go at the beginning of the season so the apples aren’t all picked over.

                The one orchard has a really fun corn maze that the families can go through which is a really fun tradition and most of the orchards have something unique to do. And all of these shops have such delicious foods not just apples but donuts, and Wisconsin is known for their cheese curds, homemade wines for the adults, apple cider and many more.

                Then when we are all done then we always stop to for supper either in PraireDuChien or Maquoketa at Flap Jack, which is very delicious.  And then start our long journey home which is always sad because then that trip is always over for the year. We always use all of our apples up by making homemade apple pies, apple crisp or just plain eating them.

                Even though this is always just a day trip, it’s always something we look forward to doing every year.  And we always make the day worthwhile with leaving early in the morning and getting home late that night.

High School Graduation Trip

     In my opinion, traveling is so exciting from the day you start planning your trip. And it’s more special when your whole family goes. Have you ever had that big surprise when you came home one day after just having a bad day and then it just became a lot better? Well that happened to me, when I was told that my brother was surprising us and taking us to Florida before I went off to college. I was so excited and didn’t know what to say, this is just going to start my college journey off great! My parents did the same thing to my sister before she headed off to college.   The summer before my oldest sister went to college we went on a family vacation and now we are planning to go to Florida for a family vacation when we are on spring break before I head to college. Talking about this in advance is getting me so anxious to go and planning what we want to do. The worst part is when the time comes and when you’re coming back from your vacation then you have nothing to look forward to and think that you went through all that work for nothing and got all exciting for nothing and now having nothing to look forward to.

                I know I would love to just lay out on the beach all lay and get a nice tan, but when traveling I know people are usually to keep busy and explore everything while they are there. But I wouldn’t mind staying at our resort that has many different things there to do.  I know that I this won’t happen, but that’s totally fine because it doesn’t happen very often for us as a family to do this and we have the chance to now, so we are going to have a blast.

                The one place that I definitely want to go is to Sea World. That place is awesome and I would love to take my two year old nephew there and see his reaction towards those amazing tricks that animals do. Also, I bet he would love Disney World, but that place is so crowed and filled with so many people. I’m not sure if he’ll really enjoy it because he’s not a big fan of crowds. I just can’t wait to see how he reacts to everything and how this whole trip will turn out.               

                I am so ready for high school to be over with so I can start my next chapter of my life, but taking this family vacation will really top the icing of my new journey and make it very memorable and a thing that I will never forget.

Traveling for the Holidays

     With the Holidays just around the corner; the airports will be filling up and the highways will be bumper to bumper. Traveling is a really big part of the holidays; with everyone going to be with family members to celebrate.  If you plan to fly somewhere over the holidays, you should make sure that you do it well in advance because the flights are booked really early and that would be very devastating if you wouldn’t be able to make it in time or even get a flight. But a helpful hint is, if you are wanting to save money and can get off work/school, I would try to travel a week or so in advance because around holidays the flights are the most expensive.

                I always travel for Christmas and it’s always very hectic because you have to take so much. But at least I don’t have to worry about the extra expense and worry about trying to get all of our luggage on the plane. I always enjoy this time of the year with all the family being able to get together and having a great time.

                A side effect of traveling over Christmas by plane is that making sure you cut down on your luggage and figuring how you’re going to get your presents back home. A lot of our family travel by plane and have this same issue. A good way that you could get their stuff back is by UPS or First Class Mail. Then you don’t have to worry about your stuff getting back and how you’re going to get all fit on the plane without paying an arm in and a leg extra for it. 

                Just remember, it doesn’t matter how you are traveling for the holidays, just be safe and have a great time with your family. This is an extra exciting time of the year for college students to be able to go home for the holidays for probably the first time since the fall to see their families. They got their first semester done and ready for a long break to recover. This is extra exciting for the freshmen in college because that they finally get to come back and see family again after a long fall at college.

Vactions Close to Home!

Traveling doesn’t mean you have to go very far. Going four hours is a big and exciting vacation

for us. I look forward going to Missouri every six months. I call this going on vacation, even though we only stay for two or three nights. We have family down there who I love going to see and we always do so many fun things. We have a doctor there that we have to see at least every six months. It’s a great reason to go and we make the trip a little more often than we would otherwise. I always love and look forward to it. It gives our family a little get away while seeing our family and a chance to get away from the house for a couple of days.

Even if we don’t have an appointment there in December, we always make sure that we

Try to get there. We always go down there with some other family members and go down

to the St. Charles Christmas Festival. We always have a blast and have started a great tradition.

There’s old time shops on cobblestone streets that that you can shop for unique gifts. The best part is walking down town where they are actually roasting chestnuts on an open fire. You bundle up warm and treat yourself to cookies and hot chocolate. You will see Christmas characters walking through the streets and carolers singing Christmas songs. I’ve never seen anything like this before. It is amazing!!  And this year there was even a parade in the morning with everyone in it.

Every year there seems that there’s something new added to it, like Olaf was there this year. There seems to be more and more people there every year.  It is a great relaxing get- a- way from all the holiday craziness. It’s a really neat thing to see, especially at nights because they have everything lite up so neat and it will definitely get you in the spirt for Christmas. Then my three other cousins go and look at Christmas lights in a big part of town close to their house. They always have amazing lights and each year they have something different and you’re not seeing the same thing over and over. These lights remind me somewhat like the ones we go see in Dubuque but ten times bigger. But I love the flashing lights and the objects that move over top of you.

Just remember that traveling doesn’t have to be considered far away and some big huge extravaganza. It can just be going an hour away and be called a vacation. I look at vacations as getting out of your house and staying somewhere for at least a night.  I go on a lot of small vacations such as going to Missouri, Manchester; my old town and staying with family etc. A vacation is doing something that is relaxing and enjoyable!