Growing up, summer's arrival naturally meant it was time for a family vacation. With three kids of varying ages in our household, it was the one time of year our parents could wrangle us all into the family station wagon and take a trip. The drives were often hellishly hot, with a soundtrack built around my mom's Neil Diamond collection, but we got to see the country on those annual trips, from the Grand Canyon in Arizona to the Corn Palace of Mitchell and from South Dakota to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee. Totally recommend all three, thumbs up!
Those early days packed in a car could have put me off tourist traps for life, but like so many unpleasant childhood experiences, I ended up embracing them when I grew up and started planning my own summer excursions. Some seek out summer seclusion by a mountain lake or remote beach — give me the boardwalk at Venice Beach or Coney Island, the long lines for roller coasters at Cedar Point in Ohio, the crush of humanity on induction weekend at Cooperstown, New York's Baseball Hall of Fame.
If I don't experience something a little too crowded, too hot and after navigating too much traffic, it just doesn't feel like I've done anything with my summer. What that will be this year remains to be seen. Perhaps a music fest in California, an amusement park in North Idaho, or Prairie Dog Town in western Kansas. What? It closed down? Maybe I'll just keep rolling to the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri. Wherever I go, you can bet the soundtrack will be better than Neil Diamond.