Vacation? What's a Vacation?

As I start my journey through the time of life that people with a sick sense of humor call MIDDLE AGE, though confidentially I don't see a lot of 100 year old men and woman walking down the street, I find myself growing nostalgic for the way things were when I was a child.
As I go through my work day I begin thinking more about my parents and my body feels more like my grandparents. So at the end of a long hot day I come home and follow a ritual that I have developed in the last few years. A ritual that comes to all middle aged men like the unstoppable desire to watch the Weather Channel and check the gas mileage of their car. Each night I cross out the next block on the calender and look longingly at the week that is marked out in red magic marker. VACATION!!
Now what is truly sad about the whole process is that I have begun to dread that week. When I was a kid my family would load up the car and hit the road for 2 weeks of middle class adventure. We would hit all the hot spots! Ruby Falls, Lookout Mountain, Luray Caverns, We even went to the exotic South of the Border and ate "real" Mexican food!
As a young kid I watched the whole of the Eastern United States fly past my side window at the then legal speed of 70 miles per hour, that was of course when my mother was awake. When she nodded off the big cruise control wheel that protruded out of the top of the 1960's Cadillac dash would strangely be rolled up to 90. After waking up one too many times to the eye level sight of a belt buckle attached to a state trooper, Mom made an effort to stay awake.
She always found a way to bring a little bit of education to me as we saw the sights. We toured plantations, walked the cobble stone streets of Colonial Willamsburgh, and saw Fort Sumter. At times I found it completely boring, but it wasn't until the next school year started and I was the only one that had actually seen the things that the history book was talking about that I realized how cool it actually was. (Thanks Mom)
Dad always liked the unusual side of travel. We went to alligator farms and Lion Country Safari and a hundred other tourist traps that I wouldn't have missed for the world. His Polaroid camera ate up film at a enormous rate and each evening was spent with the little sponge wiper and film coating that was needed to keep the pictures from fading. 40 Years latter we still have albums full of these pictures. (Thanks Dad)
Well to get back to my dilemma. The reason I dread my vacation is that somewhere in the past decades this leisurely wandering from motel to tourist cabin and slowly home again, has turned sour. It has become a frantic MOVE,MOVE, MOVE!!!! mad dash to your destination Get the hell out of the way!! I only have one week to relax and I'm not wasting any of it on that tourist crap!!! It has gone from 'Oh Great! The motel has a pool!" to "What the hell do you mean the hotel only has 6 Jacuzzis and 1 lazy river!! What a dump!" It has gone from the 30 unit motel you walked out the back door to the beach to the 20 story hotel that takes 25 minutes to get an elevator to the beach.
And forget the 2 week vacation, it has been condensed to a stress filled week that you manage to spend a month's wages on gas and hotel fees. And all the time you sit on the beach do you relax? Nope! You feel guilty for taking off the time and spending the money.
Take me back to a time when people were not so jaded and they were comfortable enough, wide eyed enough to enjoy a good road side tourist trap and were proud to cover their car's rear window with decals proclaiming to the world, like badges of honor, "I SAW RUBY FALLS!"