Every year I plan and take my dream vacation.

My dream vacations used to involve spas, facials, sun, new clothes and salt water taffy.

I can find the best salt water taffy anywhere- send me to Mars or Titan ( oh pluheeez someone send me there ) and I will score the best salt water taffy WITHOUT the use of a phone app. It’s like magic with me.

We all have our gifts and special talents and that one is mine.

In the end though I will hit Google and punch in something like ” cemeteries ” or ” Ghost Tours  and then my dream trip turns into  something else entirely.

My plans to have the ultimate facial turns into me packing my trusty everyday face cleaner and Oil of Olay lotion. My new clothes get re shelved  and I start pulling out my favorite t-shirts and favorite worn out jeans and hiking boots.

I fold them nicely so they won’t wrinkle-most of the time.

Then I pack my camera, my laptop and whatever book I’m reading at the time and I’m ready to go.

The reality is, I don’t end up on the beach, or at a resort or having dinner and sipping wine under the stars while tossing out meaningful, insightful thoughts and ideas with other Suburban Escapees.

I end up somewhere else now days-  usually at a graveyard or at a counter in a diner tossing back popcorn shrimp and hearing stories from someone who saw a UFO or meeting someone who says they went school with a serial killer.

I sort of miss those Dream Vacation Days. They were romantic, exciting, planned safe. They were predictable in a very unpredictable world.

But over the years I’ve discovered that dream vacations should be like real dreams.

They should be strange, surreal, they should feel like those dreams where you’re falling from a cliff or a building or flying.

I now consider myself an adventurer- an explorer.

Except for the part about Salt Water Taffy.

I’m not giving that up.

I still go looking for it- and I always find it.

Always.

Daily Prompt: Ceremony