One of my favorite things

One of my favorite things about vacation is that even when it’s busy, there is downtime. We had a pretty tight schedule planned for the limited time we had in South America, and we accomplished it all — did all the hikes we wanted to do, saw all the sights we wanted to see. Even with our hectic schedule, there was plenty of downtime while traveling from one place to another, or just taking an hour or two to relax and sit around.
With the downtime, I always read. I read all the time when I was a kid, but I realized that lately, all my reading is done while on vacation. The sad part is that I have a very specific process of vacation reading.
First, of course, is the guidebook. Usually something from Lonely Planet, but this time it was Moon. I always read the guidebook obsessively. I read about the history of where we’re going. I read about the attractions. I read about how to get there, how to get around, and where to do laundry (and we don’t even do laundry on vacation). I study the maps in great detail, which has the added bonus of giving me a good sense of direction once we arrive. I even read about places we’re not going, and places I’ll probably never go. I read the language section in the back, where it tells you how to say necessary phrases such as “hello,” “where is the bathroom,” and “My friend twisted her ankle on a glacier, do you have an ace bandage?” (The last one, of course, also involves a lot of hand-waving.)
I also can’t keep myself from reading the parts that I find most interesting out loud. This bothers Karen and Becca to no end, I might add, which just makes me want to do it even more. 🙂
So I love to read the guidebooks, and learn all the nitty gritty information. I suppose this shouldn’t be much of a surprise to certain people like Kent, who once saw me pass the time driving from Atlanta to Jefferson City by studying each and every page — in detail — of the Rand McNally Road Atlas. I love guidebooks, and I love maps.
After I’ve devoured the guidebook like a good little tourist, I have time to read whatever else I brought along, or, in the case of this trip, whatever someone else brought along. Over the last few days of the trip I got halfway through Becca’s book. It’s a novel by some famous Latin American author and takes place in a fictional country modeled on Chile. It was interesting enough to get me reading quickly while we were still in South America, but in the week since I’ve been back, the book — still only halfway finished — has been lying on my couch.
I used to read all the time, and now I never do. I’ve even fallen behind on my magazines. I’ve got at least two issues of Outside and four of Backpacker sitting around that I haven’t read. And the thing is, I miss reading. I don’t know what I do with that time these days; I suppose I probably spend it on the computer, working on a website or some kind of graphic design now that I’ve been taking a class.
I want to find more time to read. Reading is fun.
I finished my second web design project. It’s stupid. The assignment was to create a family album, but he said we could interpret “family” in whatever way we wanted. After enduring endless comments about the camera store in my backpack (and along with my humble opinion that most online family albums are cheesy), I decided to be a little silly and make a “family album” of my camera equipment. Here it is. It’s full of rollovers and navbars, which is very uncharacteristic of my sites. I tend to dislike the flashy stuff more than I like it, merely because it’s usually done badly. But such was the assignment. Sigh.