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You know how our kids knew we were going on vacation? When they would get home from school and find almost every thing they owned all nicely ironed and hung up all over our family room, they knew we were leaving town. Yep, I was a daily ironer. I took orders every night from each kid and my husband, "what do you want to wear tomorrow for school or for work?" I never saw the need for spending a whole day ironing, when I could spend one hour every day ironing. So when the kids came home from school and see everything they owned hanging all over the family room, they knew vacation was just around the corner.

In our early years my husband would some times not take his paid vacation in time off but work those weeks and we would save that money and all we could save during the year for a really nice vacation the next year.

It made it hard on Dad not to have the two weeks off, but then he always had hunting season to look forward to.

A really good vacation for us was a trip to Mexico, Colorado or maybe Big Bend and New Mexico. One of the best trips we took back then was when money for far away travel wasn’t available. We took a Central Texas vacation, making our home base his mothers home in Temple. Little did we know that 20 or more years later our own home base would be Central Texas.

We drove to Monterey, Mexico a couple of times and even further into the interior of Mexico. Back then travel in Mexico was inexpensive, safe and educational for the kids. In Monterey, we stayed in the old Ancira Hotel. The kids remember the big stair case up to the mezzanine and the lobby full of cages of all kinds of tropical birds. When we’d be in an elevator the Mexican people would look at Mary and touch her little blonde curly head. I think it was a good luck thing to them.

We made the trip up to Horse Tail Falls on donkeys with a guide and our son got sick from something he had eaten. He was throwing up and Pat told our guide that his son was "burracho" ( drunk) kidding of course, as he was only about 11 years old. Our Mexican guide thought that was hysterical. We also toured the Carte Blanco Brewery and the kids and I had icy cokes and Pat imbibed the free beer.

It was on this trip that our air conditioner broke down. We had to stop in a tiny village to get repairs, but on that day the line for the mechanic was long. Pat decided to give the boss a $5 bill to put us at the head of the line and I complained that five bucks would get nothing but I was wrong. Back then, and in Mexico, five bucks spoke and we got fixed ahead of the others. It was five bucks we could ill afford to give away, but hot is hot and it was.

Big Bend was an adventure I am glad we only did once. It was a long drive, and once there, a scary one. The food as I recall, was not that good and terribly expensive for a family of five. But in order to get supplies up to the lodge, it had to be packed up the mountain side by donkeys. No wonder it was expensive.

We quoted chapter and verse to our kids about being careful of snakes, to stay on the trails and to NOT touch the cactus (even the ones that SEEMED not to have thorns.) But as luck would have it, our oldest child Brad was more adventuresome and didn’t listen. He got a handful of thorns one day. I had carefully packed a first aid box, but somehow had left it behind in the motel before we got to the park.

We especially enjoyed Colorado and managed to luck out once in early June to see one of their snows. This delighted the kids of course. Brad always insisted we visit Colorado Springs where there was a dirt bike course and all the girls wanted was a pool to splash around in. Jenni, the middle child, fell in the motel pool accidentally and had to be rescued by her fully clothed dad. A little excitement never hurt anyone right?

Then there was the trip to Pikes Peak! I am so afraid of heights that all I did while Pat drove, was squeal and scream while up and around teetering at the edge of the road. By the time we got to the top, two of the children had thrown up and we had run out of things for them to throw up in when the last one lost his lunch. Pat could do nothing except to yell at me for scaring the children and insisted that sick or not we all had to decamp the car and get out and look off of Pikes Peak!

Another good trip was to New Mexico and Carlsbad Caverns. I had forgotten about this trip because seeing caverns for me is like seeing a Dam. I can’t tell one Dam from the other and we’ve seen Hoover Dam one too many times. However the kids liked the caverns and it was cool.

I called our son to confirm that we actually had been to New Mexico and that made me think of another vacation back in Texas. I began to laugh and Brad said to me, "Mom, I know what you are going to say." We had driven up around Dallas and at Arlington we stopped at a Safari Park. It was the kind you drive through. Brad our oldest, had staked out a claim to the ‘shelf’ that cars back then had behind the back seat. He was laid out back there, looking as we drove, and we stopped for a bunch of baboons that were jumping around to have a better look. One big baboon jumped on the hood of our car and tromped up and over the top of the car and banged down on the trunk and beat on that rear window where Brad has his face and it scared the living daylights out of him. He banged his head and fell off his perch and onto his sisters. I have to say, in his defense, I would have been scared too, but he didn’t enjoy our laugher.

Vacations are fun family fare and since mothers don’t iron much anymore I bet they are more fun than ever. A few adventures thrown in just make for good memories. Happy vacationing everyone.