We are going to be heading off on vacation next week. So it may be a couple before I am able to do some posting here.
The following is the article I wrote for the June edition of the Durant News and Views. I wrote this BEFORE we went out and bought our van!!!
Hope you enjoy!


Paulsen Family Vacation
By Robin Paulsen
For the News and Views

We are taking our first real family vacation. The kind where the destination doesn’t end up being at one of our in-laws and the things we do don’t revolve around their schedule or sights in their city. Not to say that those trips were bad. But our kids are getting older and we’re moving up in the realm of vacationing.

We are going camping.

I have a lot of fun memories of camping when I was a kid. Campfires, swimming, hiking, scaring the fish; the whole camping package. The good old days.

My mom told me that I first learned to write my name on a camping trip. Along one whole side of our camper. In permanent marker. The “B” was backwards and the “N” looked like a big zigzag at the end. But there was no denying what it was. My very first John Hancock across THE ENTIRE SIDE of our camper.

As fun as those memories are, somewhere along the line camping sort of lost it’s zeal for me.

I haven’t camped in years.

Truth be told, my current idea of “roughing it” is staying at a hotel without a pool. And if there is no adjacent restaurant/hotel bar…well now we’re talking downright primitive.

We are staying at a pretty nice place as far as campgrounds go. Our reservations include a cabin with air-conditioning and beds. Somehow I get the strange feeling that the “roughing it” part of this trip is going to be the “getting there” part of the trip.

The estimated drive time to our campground destination is 5 hours and 10 minutes. Which basically means it will take the Paulsen’s roughly 14 hours with ear plugs but without air conditioning.

I’m kidding, of course. (about the drive time, not the ear plugs and air) But the odds are good that it will seem like that long.

Thinking about all of this makes me curious about something. How on earth did Noah survive 40 days and nights plus the time it took for flood waters to recede, with the same people in the same boat with every known beast and creature aboard?

Did 40 days seem like 40 years?
Did anyone ask Noah, “Are we there yet?”?
Did Noah ever shout “Don’t make me pull this ark over!”?
Did Mrs. Noah ever say “I thought I told you guys to go before we set sail!”?

My bet was that Noah and the Mrs. were probably pretty normal as far as parents go. And I’d be willing to bet that they had their fair share of frustrations on their little vacation cruise. But maybe the rainbow at the end was one of the best memories of their lives. The story that gets told over and over at their family get-togethers. Yeah…I bet that rainbow was worth it all.

That’s what I’m hoping for our trip. That all of the memories will be worth the insanity of getting there.

But one thing is for sure…air conditioning or not, if someone learns to write their name on the side of my van, hopefully that person will be able to censor the first time they heard mommy use a famous four letter word out of their memory.