Vacation Living
Approximately seven years ago, work sent me to Salt Lake City for a conference. On the way there, the flight was overbooked and I was bumped and received a voucher to fly anywhere in the US along with a night in Denver. On the way back, there was a potential weather issue in Regina and they needed volunteers to stay in Denver in exchange for a $600 voucher. Those vouchers ended up sending me to San Francisco and New Orleans on one of the first vacations I took alone. I'm not talking about just travelling alone and meeting someone, but actually spending the whole time with no planned companions.
Travelling alone means that you get to do whatever you want whenever you want, but it also means that you are standing on the beach watching the sunset behind the Golden Gate Bridge alone. It's a beautiful sight, but it is also feels like something you want to do with a special someone.
Sitting alone in the hotel room would have been horrid. To avoid that isolation, I filled my days with as many things as I could. Museums, art galleries, parks, floral conservatories, zoos, and anything else that would keep me busy. It's all stuff that I enjoy but didn't really do while I was at home.
Evenings were a bit odd because I hadn't started my live music addiction at that point. In fact, New Orleans is where I got my first hit. There's only so many times you can wander around Bourbon Street watching the crowds of drunk people and towards the end of my time there I ran into a local who suggested I go eat at a restaurant on Frenchman Street and on my way back I ran across a bar where a local musician (Alex Bosworth) was playing. With that I finally realized that the thing to do in New Orleans in the evening is to find somewhere with live music and listen to it.
When I got home from the trip, I was determined to treat my regular life more like vacation. I would go to more museums, more shows, more of everything. It didn't really take initially, but now I think I've got it figured out which is why I saw Keiran Semple and Scott Pettigrew on Thursday, Women on Friday, The Stillhouse Poets and Kaeli Dane on Saturday, and West of Mabou on Sunday. I suppose I could have gone to something tonight (Dwight Yoakam was here) but I have to shop for groceries sometime.
Sitting alone in the hotel room would have been horrid. To avoid that isolation, I filled my days with as many things as I could. Museums, art galleries, parks, floral conservatories, zoos, and anything else that would keep me busy. It's all stuff that I enjoy but didn't really do while I was at home.
Evenings were a bit odd because I hadn't started my live music addiction at that point. In fact, New Orleans is where I got my first hit. There's only so many times you can wander around Bourbon Street watching the crowds of drunk people and towards the end of my time there I ran into a local who suggested I go eat at a restaurant on Frenchman Street and on my way back I ran across a bar where a local musician (Alex Bosworth) was playing. With that I finally realized that the thing to do in New Orleans in the evening is to find somewhere with live music and listen to it.
When I got home from the trip, I was determined to treat my regular life more like vacation. I would go to more museums, more shows, more of everything. It didn't really take initially, but now I think I've got it figured out which is why I saw Keiran Semple and Scott Pettigrew on Thursday, Women on Friday, The Stillhouse Poets and Kaeli Dane on Saturday, and West of Mabou on Sunday. I suppose I could have gone to something tonight (Dwight Yoakam was here) but I have to shop for groceries sometime.
