Bummers

Last week I talked about the things I enjoyed about our vacation to Lake Tahoe and this week I wanted to talk about the things that bummed me out about our trip.

I have a problem with simply enjoying vacations. During my 22nd birthday, while I was living in Florida, my mother came down and surprised me with a vacation cruise to the Bahamas. That story is for another day, but it was on that trip that I realized that I don’t relax well.

I was hoping that this trip to Lake Tahoe would be different. I did have relaxing times, but I found a way to mess that up. Though I enjoyed the drive, it was rough taking our two boys on an extremely long ride. I will just leave it at that.

Spending a few days at a pretty high-quality hotel and resort area was nice until I realized a pretty dark reality. No –pun intended. I realized that I was one of only two African American men in that fancy hotel. Any other minority at the hotel was a worker. Until I had arrived, I had no idea that there were hotels that nice, and that made my mind wander. It made me wonder how many people of my complexion have experienced an area so nice. I had the same thought for the middle class as a whole regardless of skin tone. Eventually, I did relax my mind in context to race and simply enjoyed the stay. Before that happened something else bummed me out.

My son, like many young kids, love the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT), so naturally that hotel had an arcade and the TMNT was the largest machine in the room. As PJ wanted to play the game, I realized that there was no way we could afford to let him play the game for real due to the fact that tokens were expensive. I thought to myself, “I can’t even afford to let my son play an arcade game.” I teared up a little and then realized that I lucked out because PJ was just as content to press the buttons while the game went through its preview screen.

All-in-all, we had a great time as a family, and though a few social things bummed me out, I am glad that we were able to go. I hope that one day we can afford a nice trip where money is not an option and the destination isn’t a total culture shock.