Sure, that title evokes a song by a slightly different title that has certainly been bantered about, as of late.
This post will wrap up our recent quickie to Vancouver to supposedly celebrate the occasion of our 2nd Annual 30th Wedding Anniversary Trip.
I have taken to call our 31st wedding anniversary by an alternate description in homage of an absolutely amazing adventure we took a year previous for the monumental 30th anniversary—as in; I can’t believe she put up with me all these, oh, so many years.
I have previously promised to give full detail to that wonderful long weekend that included a chartered floatplane to a private, dockside, cute little cabin, which was just a romantic rowboat paddle away from a world famous garden paradise.
It was a trip, when chronicled brings longing sighs from women and glaring glances from the men with them.
We thought we could duplicate the experience by returning to the spectacular region of the Pacific Northwest.
It was not to be so.
The trip started with an unfortunate and certainly untimely medical condition—at least for me; and things got worse from there.
Have you ever gotten a rash from poison oak?
Until last year, I always thought scratching oneself spread the extremely annoying, constantly itching rash; probably from my mom telling me to quit touching it.
Since then, I learned that the stuff spreads around, inside your body and “surfaces” wherever it damn feels like it.
The day before our trip I removed a small poison oak vine near our house employing the utmost care, to the point of wearing surgical gloves.
The next day as we awoke to leave for the north woods, I discovered I not only had the rash on my arms, but also in a place that would make it impossible to consummate our wedding anniversary. Damn.
“No ma, I didn’t touch it there…honest.”
So, if that wasn’t enough to immediately cloud my memory of such a great trip the previous year, we both had this little stomach situation, which I won’t repeat here.
Obviously, this was enough suffering for anyone at anytime, let alone in the middle of an ostensibly special trip.
But wait, there was more.
We have nothing but good things to say about the Barclay House Bed and Breakfast, including the plush, large bed in the nicely appointed room. Well, maybe except for the solid, hardwood (emphasis on the word HARD) end board on that bed.
Probably on one of my many countless trips to the bathroom taken at an urgent speed, I ran directly into the part of that solid, hardwood bed end board that stuck out, oh, about thigh level. Did I mention the solid, hardwood construction?
And that is why I spent the rest of that night hobbling to the bathroom, which gave my wife a clear advantage to get there first in the footrace competition of our Stomach Ordeal Olympics.
After a week and a half the bruise is now bright green (is it supposed to be that color?!?), still very sore, and I have a definite hitch in my get-a-long.
So, as you can see, our trip to British Columbia was just like our trip the previous year, except it was nothing like the trip the previous year.
I doubt very much I will choose to call a future trip an “anything annual” of some other, previous trip.
I think as a variant of the old adage that “you can’t go home again,” I think the same can be said about thinking you can repeat the “perfect” vacation or adventure.
Assuming you can do so almost seems a recipe to guarantee failure as was proved by our going from a celebration of three decades of marital bliss to walking wounded.
They say that shit happens.
Yes, it did.
“Where to, next year, dear?”
