For what seems like the longest time we didn't really go on vacations like most people do. We just went to Larchmont and hung out at the old Berridge family manse. Maybe it wasn't that long, because we did go to Canandaigua to Kate's place when the kids were younger in Princeton. But I guess what we surely didn't do was go on adventure vacations to different places.
Then in 2013 we started. I'm sure I wrote about it at the time. First we went to DC and Charlottesville, which doesn't seem like much but was a start. Then to the Bay Area, the Hill Country of Texas, Seattle, the UK and France, and so on.
Finally, in the summer of 2017, we flew into Portland, Oregon and made our way down the coast to Sacramento, whence we flew out. On that trip, in a coffee shop on a wind-swept pier in Port Orford, Oregon, I bought a coffee mug. It was the beginning of what can only be called a thing.
Since then I have become positively Griswoldian about the acquisition of vacation memorabilia. A mix of baseball caps, T-shirts, and an awful lot of coffee mugs. I drink from one most every morning and it brings back fond memories of being on vacation. I'm sure it is the most normal thing ever and I am fine with that. My most recent find, from Detroit a couple of weeks ago, is visible at right above, along with colleagues from Colorado, Oregon, Alaska, Guanajuato, Mexico, Glacier National Park, and other places. Natalie brought me a fine one from Zingerman's in Ann Arbor right at the beginning of the pandemic. I usually drink from that one on Sundays.
Rare is the day I don't make use of one piece of memorabilia or another. It's like permanent vacation. Who's gonna stop me?
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