The pool at my parent's summer place just outside of St. Cloud offered ample sunshine and upon jumping relief from the oppressive humidity which has hung in Minnesota for a month.  With my kids engaged at inspecting the subtle offerings at the bottom of the pool with about the cheapest goggles you can find (I bought them at the grocery store 3 for 5 bucks) I was afforded my first moments of the mindless wandering I sought, except it happened 3 days into my vacation.

I need to get better at vacations, for one I don't take many and secondly and more importantly reaching that zen relaxation point can be elusive, as we are about to discover.  Regular readers of the blog know that there is a yearly pilgrimage to Minnesota to bring my kids home from a 6 week visit with their grandparents on their mother's side, it's also a chance to spend time with my Dad and his wife.  This all sounds smashingly fabulous until you realize that my kids haven't seen me for 6 weeks so when I arrive they attach themselves to me like lovable barnacles.

By the time I see my kids after these summer trips I am also needing the hugs and love weeks distant.  The kids and I have different perspective.  When I show up they are ready to go home, when I arrive I am prepared for slow ambles in woods looking for sunshine cutting its way through pine or oak in bright slats which paint the grass uncountable colors of a bright green we don't see often enough in California.  I like time for contemplative musing, the kids call this boredom and want my cell phone and tablet and can't understand why the internet is so slow in rural Minnesota by the banks of the broadening Mississippi.

Having kids keeps you young there is no doubt about that.  A week of being dragged behind a boat clinging to a tube with your son or daughter as they laugh hysterically makes you know you are doing the right thing.

Over the course of the trip I was at times: The Secretary of Health and Human Services, Transportation Secretary, Head of the Food and Drug Administration, and Secretary of State as I brokered several peace deals with my children over the use of various toys or preferred seating next to me at whatever table or in whatever vehicle we were traveling in. 

So my moments of zen perhaps were more limited than I would have liked.  But that doesn't mean I didn't have a chance to resonate with Minnesota charm.  I posted a great video of me and a wild deer, came right up to me like I was Nature Channel show.  I noticed the sign in Fergus Falls for the "Nice law offices" and the waitress that looked and sounded like Sarah Palin and noticed how many sentences were constructed to end with the word "then".  Part of me didn't notice much of that when I grew up and lived there because it was just the way it was.  Now having lived in California for about 11 years those normal Minnesota things stand out with the authentic uniqueness which makes me understand why Garrison Keillor has written and performed everything he ever did.  There is a magic in it, and for one a year it is special.

Over the next few days I hope to shine a little light on those signposts from the past.  The trip was worth it, but now it is time to shave off a week's worth of beard, iron a shirt, pour through some computer models and catch up on a week's worth of news.  Life resumes, do ya know?!