The Great American Vacation #2

While on this incredible journey that took its participants across half a continent, stops were made in the evenings at hotels (buildings with many rooms, where you can pay people to let you spend the night, if you are far away from home ) and at mealtimes at restaurants (buildings with many tables and people who cook, where you can eat if you are away from home). A fun thing to do, back in the olden days when people travelled and took vacations ( before the Great Oil Crisis of 2009 stopped virtually all automobile travel and the car way of life ended forever), was to eat at different kinds of restaurants than those that can be found near where you live. Here, a typical American family in 2008 eats at a famous Memphis BBQ joint, known as Neely's. This spot is so famous, it even has it's own tv show. Our critique ? Deservedly so.


Upon finally reaching their destination, a popular family vacation area known as the "Outer Banks" ( a chain of barrier islands off the coast of North Carolina), full of spacious beautiful vacation homes (not the primary places a family might live, but a second home , to be visited on vacation or holiday time only). Our typical American family used to own one of these homes, but was forced to sell it a few years previously. Now they rent one each summer, instead. It was common, back in the Automotive Era, for families from the East Coast to return to the same houses, or at least houses in the same area, year after year, much like the swallows return to Capistrano.

The first thing to do, upon arriving at the beach house, was to toss all your belongings on your bed of choice, thus "staking" your territory from others , tug on your swim suit, and run to the beach as soon as possible.

A middle aged American father enjoys some quality time with his mother, in Corolla, NC. July 2008.
The teenagers in the extended family have been waiting for this moment all year - the chance to roam the beach with complete freedom, checking out "babes".

With that special radar known only to teens, the "babes" somehow know they are being checked out, and mysteriously appear. It is a ritual as old as time.