Making Memories Monday: A Home Away From Home

When I was 16, my parents bought a small vacation cabin in Central Vermont.  At the time, it provided our family a place to stay when we visited my Dad’s parents who lived in a little home of their own nearby.  In the years since, that little cabin has become so much more.  It is a home away from home, a place to relax, a place to forget, and a place to remember.  Many of my favorite times, my most memorable times, were spent in that little cabin.

The cabin has three bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen and a bathroom (with running water).  It is decorated in the browns and golds popular in the 1970s.  It is set back from the main road, on a circle that once served as a Boy Scout camp.  For years, the cabin had no phone and no television.  Now there is a television with a DVD player, for that occasional rainy day, but there is still no phone, no cable, and no internet.  It is truly a get-away, a place where family is the focus and all else can wait.

Our time at the cabin is traditionally spent fishing, boating, swimming, playing board games, and traveling around the state.  We’ve visited the Ben & Jerry’s Factory, Cabot Creamery, the Vermont Teddy Bear Factory, and Gardener’s Supply; explored the VINS Nature Center and the Montshire Children’s Museum; taken a Lake Champlain Cruise; and ridden the Green Mountain Flier   We joke that the cabin is two hours from everything, but driving in Vermont is actually pleasurable, especially coming from Northern Virginia, so I don’t mind.  Unlike home, in Vermont there is no traffic, even during rush hour, and the scenery along the way is beautiful:  cows, fields, mountains… no endless highways, vast shopping centers, and crowded housing developments.

This week, as you read this Making Memories Monday post, the boys and I are in Vermont, along with my cousin Jill (who lives in Washington State) and her two boys.  We are fishing, swimming, running, chasing, and making memories… just the moms and the boys for the week.  When it comes time to head back to Virginia at the end of the week, I know the first thing the boys will say as we drive away, “Mommy, when can we come back to Vermont?”  I know because it is the first thing they always say when we drive away from the cabin, even while the cabin is still visible in the rear view mirror.  And I know, because I feel the same way… no matter how soon our next trip, it can’t possibly be soon enough!

Do you have a special place you call your home away from home?  Link up and share this or one of your other special memories for Making Memories Monday this week.