I ran away from home yesterday.

Yes, I have. And every single time it was worth it.

Oh Boomer, that sounds wonderful. What a lovely adventure. I have never done that, but your thread has got me thinking!

Re: I ran away from home yesterday.


I'll bet it was great, everyone should escape once in a while. But will you allow Mr. B the same privilege?

me either. but... i think i am going to.

you really needed that time boom. im glad to see that you made time for you and Mo.
you sound like a wonderful parent/person.!!

So cool! That's the kind of thing kids remember forever... fondly.

Where'd you sleep?

It was wonderful!

I had been hanging by a thread the last few days and I feel restored. It was very freeing to just walk away even knowing you'll be walking back into it.

Mr. B. is more than welcome to similiar adventures. In fact, a night at home with Mo safe with Mr. B would be totally zen.

We stayed in a little hotel that I had been to years before. Its right on the beach, where the dunes are low and don't present a lose your kid in the sand problem. I remembered that it had a little playground, and a pool, and restaurants and stores within walking distance. From Mo's perspective the best thing about it is that it is right on the railroad tracks. From my perspective the best thing about it is that it is clean, not too expensive, has a kitchenette and is only about an hour from the house. Sometimes you can see whales and seals and once I saw a penguin on that beach. Really, a perfect run away for the day location.

Here's a cool photo from the beach we stayed on:

Great photo!

I wish I had an ocean an hour away.

But I'm sure I have lots of other treasures within an hour if I wanted to go for it.

cool to sweet

As a child our family ran away often. Mom and Dad would load us all in the car and tell us we are "going for a ride." When we asked, "Where are we going?" our answer always was: "I don't know, but we'll know when we get there."

Sounds like you had a great day Boomerang

On a somewhat related topic, E.G.'s rust bucket needs more repairs than we can currently afford, and yesterday he took "my" car, the one I'm used to having. I had no idea how many impulse trips we take until I was without the car.

To start the day, sozlet didn't get enough sleep -- that doesn't happen much, but when it does, I just drive her around and she falls asleep and I transfer her to the couch for a little nap.

D'oh.

Then, at least 10 times we were talking about something and I started to say, "Let's go ____" and then... double d'oh.

I perused bus schedules, that's an option, but it's a) witch's mammary cold and b) sozlet was being a terror and I just wasn't in the mood to do something new with her. (She was in a dash-into-the-street-for-no-reason sort of terrible mood. Girl needs her sleep, and I was feeling trapped, and we were feeding off of each other in a bad way.

Anyway, today hubby took the bus and I'm feeling much, much calmer... or was until about halfway through this post when she started doing one annoying thing after another (catching the tension vibes as I remembered yesterday I guess) so better go pay attention to her.

That's cool, colorbook! I may make it a point to run away from home on a regular basis.

Soz, it was that tension vibe that sparked my running away. Things have been really tense around here and it was rubbing off on everyone and everything, we've all been behaving like a sleepy sozlet. I knew a little break would be good for both me and Mr. B and for me and Mo and for Mo and Mr. B.

I hope I'm right.

(And I can't take credit for someone else's photo. I found that on the net since the gallery is closed and I can't post any images.)

I love to run away. I've had lots of adventures. There's something about being spontaneous that always cheers me up.

I think it is the spontenaity that makes it work.

My only planning was to look at the weather map in the paper (beach forecast: sunny, 58 degrees, no wind -- perfect).

Sigh....
Boomerang, sounds sooo cool.

I ran away a few times: once in school at Northwestern, I ran away for the day along the beach at winter. It wasn't super cold, but deeply foggy. Mostly everyone had gone home for Thanksgiving, but I couldn't afford it. I sat around feeling pitiful, then just packed up some warm stuff and hit the foggy beach! It was great. Then, around sunset, I heard bagpipes. Totally eerie, and I was sure some odd demon was coming. Out of the fog came a piper in full piper drag-the kilt, the sporran, the cute little tabbed socks.
We talked for an hour or two--he was homesick as well (it was my freshman year and all my new buds were home), and we laughed and talked and told stories. Made going home to the dorm seem fine.

Another time was also in Chicago, when I was tired of everybody at the TV station where I was working.
I called a friend, we hopped a plane Saturday night for NYC and slept on a friend's dorm floor at Columbia. We went for Sunday brunch at a place we both loved. Then saw the Ballet and flew home! No one knew we'd gone and we had the best time!!

I love that bagpiper on the foggy beach story!

I have a sort of similar story from when I was a teenager and ran away for a few hours, kind of like what you did. Looking back on those few hours as an adult it really seems almost as if I spent the day with a ghost or a spirit of some sort.

With the exception of husker, I believe that all the responders to this thread are women. I wonder if the need to run away once in a while is more of a girl thing....

And if so, why?

Interesting question. I think that generally -- my own lovely housework doing hubby excepted -- men have more defined roles than women do. Work is at work. When they leave the office, they're not working.

Women, on the other hand, generally have more fluid roles -- "work" tends to bleed into all quarters. Making dinner, cleaning up, watching the kids, getting the kids ready for bed, finishing up with Christmas gifts... Even though my hubby is really really good about housework (we're equally likely to do most things and he's more likely to clean the bathrooms), we do have a clean gender role split when it comes to Christmas. He doesn't do Christmas. I do all the thinking, making, buying, and he signs his name. He gets ME something, but thassit.

I think there is still a lot of that even in the most enlightened families -- especially when there are kids -- so leisure time/ vacation must be wrested from the jaws of work rather than just coming along naturally.

I tend to overdo. Constantly--right now, I'm the executive director of a cultural center in SF, work a day job, design sets and am a photographer and have had to prep for 2 holiday shows. Add into that my partner and a house to keep up...well, I feel the need to flee sometimes.

Think I've always added on too much.

Sometimes I like going on planned trips alone too. I've had some of my best (of myriad trips) to Italy when I went by myself--it forced me to try to speak and think in Italian, since there wasn't an English buffer. Also, people would tend to talk to me because they weren't worrying about interrupting us, and since I answered in Italian, they didn't have to worry about their English (I only had to sweat about my Italian!).

Solitude or getting away from the routine--A Change is as good as a rest! as my auntie used to say--really does recharge one, make you look at your life anew, or sometimes just look at yourself...or finally, not look at nothin'! It's all up to you. Maybe that's what makes it so pleasant-it's all in your own hands and mind! The best and sometimes the scariest thing!