I could actually take the easy way out on this week’s Ten on Tuesday topic, “10 Favorite Vacation Moments,” and link back to the 10 days of vacation moments I recently posted about as the “Road Trip Diary,” but I decided that I should look back further than last month‘s vacation, and see what past experiences stood out. The list is organized by destination and travel year, and some vacations have more than one “moment” worth recalling.

Boston, 1989
When my son was five years old, he, his father, and I traveled to Boston to visit some friends for a few days. We drove from upstate New York, but didn’t really want to use our car around the city, since Boston has an excellent public-transit system. We got a map of the “T” before our trip, and Chris studied it carefully. While we were in Boston, he acted as our tour guide, making sure we knew which train lined to take and where to make our changes.

San Francisco, 1990
I made this trip on my own, not long after my sister had moved to the Bay Area. I stayed with her for an extended weekend, and one of our activities was a baseball game at Candlestick Park (Giants vs. Mets). The game was played late afternoon/early evening on a Sunday (East Coast prime time – the game was being shown on ESPN) in mid-August. We wore winter coats, huddled under stadium blankets, and drank hot chocolate.

Bay Area, 1993
This was my second trip to see my sister in San Francisco. I stayed a little longer this time, and since was more familiar with the area by then, we were able to explore more, and even go out of the city – we planned an overnight trip to Monterey and Carmel. She didn’t own a car – didn’t need one – and I had come by airplane, so we made the side trip in a rented white Ford Festiva that we named “Stubby.”

Caribbean cruise, 1995
This was the first cruise for my family. As it turned out, it was a great one to take an 11-year-old sports-obsessed boy on, because it was a theme cruise – basketball, with some former NBA players as special guests. There was a special basketball clinic for the kids on the ship, which was fun to watch. It was also fun when we participated in a sports-trivia contest; the three of us joined someone we’d met on the ship to compete as a team, and he turned out to be a “ringer” – he worked at the Basketball Hall of Fame. Thanks to him and Chris, our team came in fourth (Chris’ dad and I would have ranked down near the bottom without them).

Olympics, Atlanta 1996
It’s mostly the fact that we were there at all that puts this vacation on the list.

I had to skip ahead about ten years to find some more worthy recollections. During the interim, I bought a house, sold a house, got divorced, moved to California, and met my second husband. Tall Paul and I have had some wonderful travels already in our three years together, and I look forward to many more.

San Francisco and Monterey, 2006
This was our first trip together, a few months after we got engaged. We’d both been to San Francisco before (I’ve already mentioned my previous trips there), but it was Tall Paul’s first visit to Monterey. We stayed in a beautiful hotel on Nob Hill in San Francisco, located at the corner of California and Powell streets (not far from my sister’s old apartment), and our room overlooked the intersection of two cable-car lines. We were without a car in the city, and walked or took the cable cars or trains everywhere we went. We saw a baseball game at AT&T Park, which is a gorgeous ballpark and nowhere near as cold as Candlestick Park was; we were in town the same weekend as our hometown Dodgers, who blew a five-run lead over the Giants in the ninth inning.

We rented a car for our trip to Monterey, where we stayed in a bed-and-breakfast just across the road from the beach. The waterfront was overrun by California sea lions.

Tennessee, 2007
When I returned to Tennessee for the first time since I’d moved away, five years later, I was looking forward to two things: my son’s university graduation, and introducing my native-Californian second husband to things I still missed about Memphis – most notably the food. We did the obligatory (for me – he actually wanted to go) visit to Graceland, and I loved taking him to visit my old workplace, The Memphis Zoo. I took him to his first minor-league baseball game at the Memphis Redbirds’ AutoZone Park, and we saw the Peabody Ducks do their evening march across the hotel lobby.
But after two years of hearing me pine after things like Back Yard Burgers and Memphis barbeque, Tall Paul had the chance to try Southern cooking for himself. I’m looking forward to taking him back again for more!

Together, we also visited parts of the state that were new to both of us. Since I hadn’t been back to Tennessee since my son started university, I had never visited Knoxville before, and I’d spent very little time in Nashville (there’s a little rivalry between Nashville and my old hometown, and Memphis has a bit of an inferiority complex about it). We spent a day in the heart of the Smoky Mountains, and after years of seeing its billboards, I finally had the chance to see Rock City and its famous view of seven states.

I’m pretty sure there at least ten favorite moments scattered through this post, maybe more. I’d love to know about some of your favorite vacation memories too, and if you’ve played Ten on Tuesday this week, please leave a link to your post in the comments!

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