How Not to Waste Your Summer Vacation

Looks like much of our summer vacation would be spent at home. If you're a homebody (like I often am) then you have no problem. But what if you're used to traveling during summer vacations (as I often do, too)? Staying home would be sheer horrifying.  But it doesn't have to. [Picture above by Austin Distel, Unsplash].

I've started it--going over pictures and videos I posted on Facebook and on my YouTube channel. I thought it would be boring, but I was wrong. It was actually fun, especially the part where you remember the very feelings you felt when the experiences took place, and watching and listening to your special someone in the videos.

Or simply staring at the pictures and reminiscing what took place there--the laughter, conversations, cries of excitement, adventure, suspense and mystery. The good news and bad news. And especially the crazy rides to the countryside.

Picture above from this site.

I remember the time when we all felt the call of nature and we were in the middle of nowhere (amid rice fields actually), no gas stations, fastfood or bay stations in sight. So we stooped the car and knocked on the door of a tattered hut and asked if we could use their toilet. The hospitable owner agreed, smiling. And as you'd guess, the toilet wasn't that user-friendly, not when the users were from the city. But it was good enough for the purpose.

Several times I had to use a toilet bowl that was simply embedded on the floor. You'd squat as low as you could and fire. And when I was a kid I actually used a rural outhouse a lot of times when I spent weekly vacations in my dad's hometown, San Juan, La Union.

You know what an outhouse is, of course. It's a makeshift, elevated toilet facility covered with sacks and branches and located about 50 meters from the main house. So it's tough using it in the middle of the night. You never know if a python or wild boar lurked nearby. Then you squatted on the floor right over a hole directly aiming at a large earthen vessel buried halfway in the ground below.

And yup, you got to be a sharp shooter. A three-pointer. One miss can be fatal. The picture here is a decent one compared to what we had back then.

These things make summer vacations extra fun, and reminiscing them extra exciting especially during a COVID 19 total quarantine.


Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay