THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 17, 1994 TAG: 9407150110
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KEITH MONROE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
EVERY FAMILY probably needs someone to be the designated worrier when it comes to vacation planning. I have only one question: Why, when it comes to my family, does it have to be me? But the answer is obvious. Natural aptitude.
My wife is one of those anyplace-I-hang-my-hat-is-home types. Left to her own devices, she'd get to the airport with moments to spare and no luggage, sleep like a baby on the flight to Sarajevo, deplane in a hail of sniper fire and wait cheerfully to see what would happen next.
Since this would drive me totally nuts, it becomes my job to worry about everything in advance. Where we'll sleep each night and how we'll get from here to there. When the national holidays fall and the swoon of the dollar that will render our currency about as valuable as Confederate scrip.
I generally require about six months in advance of a trip to do an adequate job of obsessing. Even then, I am haunted by the fear that I'll return home only to discover that I came within a kilometer of one of the greatest sights on the planet and drove past it oblivious.
This summer, we're headed for France in August. Sounds impressive, or at least expensive. But it's really less than ideal becasuse several million other people will be doing the same thing, and the state of the aforementioned dollar will make eating bread expensive and cake out of the question.
We chose France because it was the farthest we could get using our frequent flier miles without incurring any additional expense. It's August because that was the only time when the crazy calendars of two adults and two children permitted - what with summer school and swim team and business travel and a myriad other obligations.
In anticipation, I have been charting our day-by-day itinerary, finding lodging for every night, planning routes by poring over maps so detailed they show individual grapes in vineyards and pigeons on statues. I have perused half a dozen guidebooks that contradict one another and have tried to resurrect enough classroom French to avert menu disasters. At Parisian prices, it is obviously too late to discover only when the plates arrive that rognons means kidneys and macassin is young boar or that fruits de mer comes from the sea not the orchard.
I have now more or less memorized the Paris Metro and am prepared for a pop quiz on famous Burgundians such as Nicolas Rolin and Philippe le Bon. In fact, I yearn for the payoff, the day when the children will ask my opinion of the gothic restorations of Viollet-le-Duc or for the true story behind the banishment of Bussy-Rabutin from the court of Louis XIV.
It'll never happen, of course. The only questions I'm likely to get are: How long till we get there? How do you use these weird bathrooms? Why can't we go to Eurodisney? And how long till we get home?
No matter, I am prepared for any eventuality. The only problem with such overpreparation is that by the time you're ready to shove off - as a cross between a tour guide and a lion tamer with a traveling circus - you're too exhausted to enjoy the ride. If this is my vacation, when do I get some time off? Maybe next year. by CNB