Vacation All I Ever Wanted Vacation Had to Get Away

I often travel for work. Which means in the past year, I've been to Honolulu (twice), Chicago, New York City and San Francisco (twice), among other places. I get to stay in a Hilton, Marriott or Sheraton (government rate) and they give me an adequate daily rate for meals. I'm spoiled. When it comes time to plan a non-work related trip, I'm shocked by the cost of airfare and lodging. I really wanted The Artist to come on my last trip to NYC, but even with my plane ticket and hotel paid, his airfare was more than we could afford.

So I have planned a mini-vacation for some of us: Bumbershoot. This is an annual music and arts festival in Seattle, in the shadow of the Space Needle. This year we'll drive up from Vancouver, attend the festival, stay overnight and then hit Pikes Place Market before heading home.

This will be my second time to Bumbershoot. The first was in 2001, when I gave up my 10 year college reunion in exchange for a week in Washington state with Gretchen.

The Bumbershoot Festival is always over Labor Day Weekend, which makes it a great final fling before school starts. At Bumbershoot 2001, we saw people in salmon hats, a very short man with a very long snake (overcompensation?!), the Kelly Hunt Band and the Reverend Horton Heat. I caught a plane on September 8 in order to be home for The Artist's birthday on September 9.

We all know what happened a few days later. I was so grateful to be home with my family. I was so grateful that I got to spend a carefree week of vacation with my best friend, since I didn't know what was going to happen next.

Of course, for many of us, nothing much is what happened next. The planes flew again, gasoline was available, the muslim kids still attended Hillcrest School. I wonder, did it change me? I cried at the images of the family members showing photocopies of their missing loved ones in the streets of New York. I donated a little bit of money. I even got the hell out of America by moving to Canada--though a year later I moved back. But did it change my outlook on life? Did it make me hard, or scared, or self-righteous? I don't think it did.

However, when I learned that I have a conference in Washington, DC in early September, I was glad that the events would start on September 11 and I'd be able to fly on September 10. There's no need to tempt fate.