Vacation Traditions Come Home

If you look at your life, especially for those of us that live in Virginia, you'll find the hallmarks of tradition running through just about every aspect of it.  To some southerners, tradition almost becomes a way of life rather than a part of it.  In my family, our traditions are numerous and wide-ranging.  Whether it has been practiced for generations like eating oyster stew on Christmas morning or something recent like making a trip each July to pick pounds of blueberries to cook and freeze, traditions are the thread that ties together families and provide a link to those who have come before us.   As important as they are, what do you do when the basis of a tradition has the potential to become watered down enough where it may become less special?

Each year, one of the major traditions of my family is going to the Outer Banks for a week long beach vacation.  We have been doing this for almost twenty years and can't imagine missing this linkage to how our children have grown over the years and the experiences and memories have grown richer with time.  In this major tradition, there are also sub-traditions.  These are smaller but no less important.   Two of these sub-traditions are:  stopping to eat at a Sonic Drive-In in North Carolina on the drive to the beach and visiting a local Duck Donuts shop on the morning we are driving home after checking out.  Both have been part of our beach trip for years and we look forward to keeping these simple experiences as part of our vacation for years to come.

In my local paper yesterday, it was reported that Sonic was building a new drive-in restaurant and Duck Donuts would be expanding into Richmond as well.  When I read the news it made me wonder, would making each more available locally make it less special to visit when we go back to the beach?

After careful thought, I decided to leave well enough alone and allow both Sonic and Duck Donuts to remain a part of my vacation tradition rather than make them just another choice for fast food or donuts at home.  It may sound odd to some, but certain things are meant to be experienced in the atmosphere that we find our happiest memories are made.

Anyway for me, the best part of the annual visit to Sonic is letting the Dude order off the menu and get his personal vacation cheeseburger.  While I have no doubt that it would be his choice to forgo tradition and welcome local visits to Sonic on a regular basis, we'll keep it to once a year.  After all, along with his cheeseburger comes the annual vacation tradition of "The Swimming of the Dude".  But that will need to be another story for another time.  Now that is resolved, the world may start to spin on its axis once again.