Thirteen Things about Traveling for Fun

They’re experimenting with giving us topics every week over at the Thursday Thirteen site. I hope it’s not mandatory. but I think I can bend a lot of them around to suit our topic anyway. And, you know, one of my mottoes in life now is that when you become an adult, almost nothing is mandatory. Even in childhood, a lot more things are choices than we think (or are told). This week, they ask for recommendations of thirteen places to visit. Fortunately, travel has been a huge part of recovery for me.

I’ve noticed, when reading about 12-step stuff, that a lot of people in Debtors Anonymous – that is, people who are working on having a better relationship with money – share incredible stories about how much deprivation and chaos they used to live in and how now they are going off to spend six months in France, or getting all their expenses paid to visit Brazil, or finding scholarships and grants to travel around the world studying whatever they want. Going from deprivation to great abundance and freedom.

One of the major effects of abuse is to live in chaos and deprivation. We learn that we are not enough, that nothing we ever do will be good enough – whether it is because we are directly given this message by our families, or because although they accept our school and work performance nothing seems to stop the abuse at home. We learn that we can never be good enough.

This is also part of the guilt and shame that children take on when they are abused. Young children, especially, are developmentally supposed to think that they are the center of the universe. They’re supposed to be the center of their parents’ universe. Unfortunately, when all they can understand is that the world revolves around them, and they are abused in some way, they have to assume that they did something to cause or deserve it. After all, as far as they can tell, everything else that happens in the world is about them. So, they subconsciously reason, if they caused something this terrible to happen to them, they must have deserved it; they must be as bad, deep down, as their experience of abuse. Or else why would it have happened to them?

This is of course totally ridiculous and illogical, but what more do you want from a little kid? Being wild and ridiculous and illogical and making huge creative leaps is kind of their job, or at least their specialty. The problem is that these ideas form part of our psyche, part of the way we learn to approach the world, from a young age and for a long time. Sometimes we never do learn to question them. We’ve bought into them for so long, reinforced them so often and had them reinforced so well by others, that it is terrifying to consider that they might be complete and utter bullshit.

And for a lot of people, travel becomes an area of deprivation. We underearn and claim we could never afford to go anywhere. We overwork, filling our time with errands or work or other responsibilities so that we just never seem to find the time to travel. We hoard our resources, stacking up money in the bank and going without the good stuff we really need, terrified of spending too much lest we experience a terrible crisis and get caught short. We pull back from life, avoiding the things that most excite us because we are afraid that if we get what we really want it will be torn away from us. We avoid joy, because we have been avoiding so many other feelings so long – because somewhere deep down, we think that if we start feeling any strong emotions, all the fear and sadness and rage we feel from the abuse will rise up and devour us.

So, travel for fun is a great part of recovery. Last year, my new year’s resolution was to have more fun, and I ended up going on several trips both locally and around the country. For my Thursday Thirteen, I’d like to share some of those trips with you! In no particular order:

1. The American Girl Store in Chicago, Illinois.
   
   They let you borrow American Girl dolls to eat with at lunch! Molly on the left was mine, and Blonde Doll Whose Name I Forget was my girlfriend’s. Oh I know: Nikki. I think. The store is a lot of fun if you like American Girl dolls. Which I do. I used to get the catalogs and just stare at them all day when I was younger. Funny: at the time the prices seemed OUTRAGEOUS, but now they seem pretty reasonable. I know they are still a little pricey, but I don’t think they’ve gone up at the pace of inflation. Once you have a doll (or some other doll who wants American Girl accessories) the accessories and toys and stuff for the dolls are downright reasonable to me: generally $20 and under for things like Victorian-era nightgowns, horses, orange-crate scooters, kittens, bicycles, et cetera. I even ended up buying myself the Samantha doll I ALWAYS WANTED as a child, and my girlfriend the Nikki doll (it was the doll of the year last year, so there was a limited time in which to get it!) so we could play together.
2. Mojo Spa in Chicago, Illinois.
   
   Besides all their great spa treatments, they also have a fabulous line of totally natural products made with fresh fruits, vegetables, and other foodstuffs (like truffle oil in the High Society face cream!) by one of the owners who used to be a chef. And their customer service is agonizingly good. This is a picture of my girlfriend unwrapping her dinner on one of their nail tables. We got there late for our appointments and they squeezed us in afterward anyway, then stayed open for hours after they normally would while I got I think the most lavish manicure and pedicure they had (in celebration of my 29th birthday!), and let other people come in and browse and buy stuff… and then they let us stay and eat our dinner and hang out with them afterward… and helped us figure out how to get to the Zipcar we were renting… and then the woman who did my nails even gave us a ride to the Zipcar on her way home. Which wasn’t on her way home. They are very, very nice people. If I lived anywhere near there, I’d be at their weekly and monthly brunch-spa-type events ALL THE DAMN TIME.
3. Boston Common: Boston, Massachussetts
   
   (picture courtesy of Alejandro T. on Yelp, not mine)
   Sooo pretty. We went to Massachussetts for my gorgeous friend Yael’s wedding, and stayed in Boston for a few days too. They have a frog pond full of statues of frogs. And tons of trees. And one side is bordered by the theater district, and another by the street where most of the spas are. I got my nails done somewhere there for the First Time Ever. I haven’t bitten them since. Ta-da!
4. The Beech Tree Inn
   
   (That’s our room, I think! Bryanne R. put that picture of it on Yelp.)
   My girlfriend and I stayed here for a few days last summer and we LOVED IT. We stayed in the topmost room, under the eaves with a private bathroom across the hall. It was so gorgeous and welcoming. I heard so much about the lavish breakfasts and the fresh cookies baked every day but I still had to experience it to really understand how amazing it was! All kinds of fresh cookies, take as many as you want, tea, coffee, a little library, a kitchen you can use to warm up your dinner or leftovers, near incredible restaurants, and the bathroom was huge! And so well-stocked with comfy towels and nice bath supplies. And they were so nice. I asked them how I might get a subway/bus pass for just a day around there, and they just handed me one that another visitor had left that had a couple of days still on it. I would kind of like to live here!
5. Apple Lane Inn in Aptos, California
   (Apple Lane Inn’s picture of our room)
   This was our first trip away together! My girlfriend and I stayed here on a weekend trip to the Monterey Aquarium. It is the CUTEST little Victorian. They serve a full, elaborate and very friendly breakfast, and the place is stuffed with things like a player piano, an old-timey radio, and other cool antique stuff. The bed was a huge four-poster with a private bathroom that had a chaise-longue and HUGE clawfoot bathtub we could both get in. Best place EVAR.
6. Carmel-by-the-Sea, California (warning: website talks. Why god why?)
   (picture is from the above “official travel site” for the city)
   We visited this adorable, expensive little town for a day while staying at the Apple Lane Inn. It has really really nice beaches, and really really nice fairly expensive places to shop and eat. We met someone who raised the same kind of weird pointy dogs as Annie’s mother, and walked past The Tuck Shop, which would be on this list for serving great cream teas if they had been open, and visited a cute tiny place that sold tea sets, and Annie got some amazing shoes, being a Shoe Person, and we saw really cute houses. Plus, it appeared to have free wi-fi everywhere.
7. Monterey Aquarium, Monterey, California
   
   (picture by my lovely friend Abra)
   I love the Monterey Aquarium. Parking is expensive, unless you are willing to park in a residential neighborhood and walk five blocks or so. Monterey has made their parking meters very expensive and charges for them until very late at night, even on weekends. They know where their money comes from. And of course parking garages cost money too. But the aquarium is vast and fun: there are tide pools where you can pet the starfish and gingerly touch the sea urchins; there is a place to watch otters frolic, as they are the world-renowned Experts in Having Fun; and there are gorgeous jellyfish displays, among many many other exhibits. They have really good food there, too, for a public museum-type place.
8. Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, Santa Cruz, California
   
   (picture from the Beach Boardwalk website)
   I think we went in the middle of the week or maybe too late in the fall or both, so a limited number of rides were open. But still, we got to go on the old wooden rollercoaster (surprisingly uncomfortable), the bumper cars (really fun! total strangers raced with us and played with us), and best of all the… thing whose name I don’t remember, where you are lifted hiiiiiiigh up in the air and then dropped and lifted and dropped again. It is like being bounced in the Goddess’ lap. If you bring that level of trust to it, anyway, otherwise it is terrifying! And then you can get a picture of yourselves riding it with all the zero-gravity forces or whatever of being dropped. I will try to post a picture of ours. Plus, the whole thing is right next to the beach and has an awesome arcade full of old-fashioned and new games. Which reminds me of another place:
9. The Musee Mechanique, San Francisco, California
   
   (Picture by Rona J. of yelp.com)
   This place is amazing. It houses a vast collection of really old penny arcade machines. They no longer cost a penny, I’ll tell you that, but your change will buy a lot of entertainment here. That picture there is of a whole carnival built from toothpicks, which lights up and plays music and moves around when you put a quarter in. They have old-fashioned machines where you can watch tiny old-fashioned movies, and even turn the handle to move them at whatever speed you want yourself. It’s amazing to see what they could do with all that heavy metal technology before we ever came up with plastic or microchips or anything.
10. Mendocino, California
    
    
    Just last month! We stayed with Annie’s grandparents, who are fabulous people, hung out with her equally fabulous brother and toured their farm, Gowan’s Oak Tree, which is so vast and beautiful. That’s in Philo, on the way to Mendo. Mendocino has gorgeous beaches; we played at this one where Big River (possibly) empties into the ocean, so you can actually walk up the beach and watch it transform from ocean into river. I decided that that happened when my foot suddenly went down into a foot of water instead of a tiny edge of surf. I even have a picture of myself playing on this beach when I was little, covered in sand and a muddy pair of shorts and about nothing else because I was only two or three. There is a great bookstore called Gallery, where I got a book about how to collect and cook seaweed, an incredible toystore which sadly closed before we got there, and some great food to be had.
11. Tilden Park, Berkeley, California


(Picture by Harold Davis, who also blogged about his visit here!)
Specifically, the vintage carousel at Tilden. It is beautiful, surrounded by even more beautiful parkland and majestic views, and also you can get a ton of sweets and goodies along the lines of candyfloss/cotton candy and giant cookies and hot dogs and such. Carnival food, like they should serve around merry-go-rounds. Plus, it is really cheap to ride.

12. Golden Skate, San Ramon, California


(picture from Arnold M. on Yelp)
Sigh. This place is so much fun. We have been twice and I want to go sooo many more times! Not only is roller skating fun (and you can get quads or inline skates; I always get quads because that is what I learned on and I figure the more surface area I am balancing on, the better) but also, they have games to play and prizes to win at the end of each skating session, they play good music and take requests AND dedications (I dedicated a Justin Timberlake song to my girlfriend when she got her MFA in Creative Writing last year), they have fun video games to play, they have snacks and hot dogs and such…. PLUS they have tons of theme nights. Disco nights, 80s nights, all you can eat pizza nights… so much fun to be had here!

13. The Plumed Horse Restaurant, Saratoga, California


(picture by Katy Raddatz of the San Francisco Chronicle; more here)
A great place for fabulously expensive food that is totally worth it. I didn’t think about the prices before I went, so I was less well-prepared than my girlfriend, who had planned ahead and saved up for the over-$100 tasting menu. She got some incredible food, but I didn’t do too badly with my $60-$80 myself: I EXTREMELY recommend the “Camembert cheese fondue, duck fat fried fingerling potatoes, black truffle, $15.” I think they mean black truffle oil, and also: who cares? BEST THING EVER. EVER. This was our New Year’s blowout, not on New Year’s itself.

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