Scheduling summer

Planning summer….  Trying to figure things out with both of us working full time and military obligations can get interesting. 

At the beginning of the year, we start throwing ideas and dates around for the summer.  As we are still relatively new to the East coast, we realize there are still so many places to go and things to do in the time we are here.  So, the planning starts early. A lot of research goes into travel time, things to do, and reviews.  We learned our lesson last year staying overnight in a campground outside of Hartford, Connecticut, in which we felt like we were in the movie Deliverance.  Lesson learned!! But, back to the beginning with planning… How do we figure things out? Here’s a little background information. The first summer we were in Pennsylvania, we did a lot of day trips travelling two hours to and from the beach for the day.  You might think this is a bit much, but it gets HOT here in the summer and well, no one is around.  We needed something to do. We picked random locations along the coast trying to pick up any information from the locals that we could to try and see would fit us best.  I would overhear one of the neighbors say they went to “Wildwood” or “Ocean City” and return back home to look it up and we would go there.  Our neighborhood vanishes in the summer as so many have family beach homes. You might ask, well, why wouldn’t you just stay overnight in a hotel if you were spending so much time at the beach on the weekends.  Well, hotels here are quite different in these beach towns.  In the summer, hotel beaches are usually about $300+/night.  They are not nice, clean chain hotels...think mom and pop, 1980's hotels with cheesy gold fixtures, retro furniture, and tacky wallpaper.  Now I don’t need a fancy hotel, but it is seriously like stepping back into time with the extra cost. Add in kids that want to play trucks on the floor, you might think twice about staying in one of these.  We tried every beach town up and down the coast between New Jersey and Delaware, trying to find a place we enjoyed.  We thought the day driving was getting a bit much and wanted to continue spending time on the beach, so we thought of ways to work around hotel costs.  We tried camping in a tent.  I quickly learned that I did not enjoy the lack of creature comforts and amount of work involved in planning these trips after a busy week at work.  So, that wasn’t going to work.  But, we discovered there were a lot of camping areas near the beaches on these trips.  Kris started looking into travel trailers…. Need I say more. Never in our wildest dreams did we ever think we would be owners of one of these.  But, Kris punched the numbers and quickly learned that if we camped at least 14 nights per year, it would be cheaper than staying in a hotel. So, last summer we ended up purchasing a 21 foot travel trailer that included a slide out king size bed, bunk beds, full kitchen, and bathroom/shower.  We camped 24 nights total last year, visited multiple cities, states, and beaches, and even made the 8+ hour trip up to Arcadia National Park in Maine. 

So, why the lengthy explanation? Well, to make it back to my opening statement, of summers take a lot of planning and coordination for us. Over the years, we have grown to enjoy long weekends and also the day after a long holiday off. So, when starting out summer planning, we look at planning one big trip for the summer like most families.  This is our starting point.  We decide where we will spend this trip whether somewhere new or deciding between the families who, where, how, etc for the trip. We also look at weekends and places we’ve enjoyed and want to return or again do the research to plan on length of drive and reviews.  Being centrally located to most major cities on the East coast is a huge advantage.  We can get to New York City, Baltimore, and Washington DC all within 2-3 hours.  There is so much in between! We also look at summer camps for the boys as we both work full time and have selected the local city camp as the best price and fit for them with several children from their school attending as well.  In the end, Kris does the majority of the research figuring out the exact locations we will go and books them months out as they tend to fill rather quickly! We try to include educational opportunities with museums and other history lessons for the boys. So, figuring out weekends to travel, kids summer camp, Kris’s mandatory one weekend per month military training, my running races or Crossfit competitions can get crazy.  Don’t forget time at the local pool for swimming and finishing up baseball through June, our summers fill fast.  Seems a bit chaotic and unrelaxing, but in the end the schedule allows us to plan accordingly and give us control in knowing what is ahead.  Summer shouldn’t be so scheduled, but in order to travel and be able to do the things we all want to do, requires a bit of planning and prep work, but in the end it is all worth it!