Family Vacations and the American Dream
The furthest I ever went on a family vacation growing up was one state over east--to Wisconsin. It lasted about 5 days or so. Most years, the routine would be 3 or 4 days and a 3-to-4 hour car trip to either Duluth, Minnesota at the western end of the Great Lakes or to Minneapolis, Minnesota where we'd take in a Twins baseball game. On no level is this a complaint. This was sufficient and I only had two real comparisons to it. My father had never stayed overnight with his parents anywhere. This was not necessarily an economic choice, but a product of my paternal grandfather's experiences in the Second World War and a desire to never leave home again for the night. The other comparison was to peers. Here I'd get a bit more of a sense that friends of my would go on trips to Europe or Florida or elsewhere. To this day I've never traveled on a plane with my parents and likely never will. Earlier this month my wife and I traveled with our son for the fifth time on a plane i