It started yesterday when I dropped off my kid at the airport. He is flying to Sanibel Island with his girlfriend and her family for a week.

In my old life I use to travel enough that I would sometimes get tired of it. But, it's been a couple of years since I flew anywhere. I think it might be time.

I googled cheap flights to see if there was someplace interesting I might want to visit. For $198 round trip I could go to Detroit. For about $200 I could drop into Vegas and for only $168 I could get a flight to Chicago. I could fly into Tampa for $177 or Newark for $185.

Somehow, Detroit just didn't do it for me. Vegas has a temperature of 102 degrees this week and I've been to Chicago many, many times. Having lived near Tampa for six years I always compare it in the summer to living in Indiana in August--hot and humid. And, I'm not really sure exactly where Newark is.

I mentioned camping to my husband. As a child I grew up in a family that camped every weekend the weather permitted. We went to state parks all over Indiana and spent weeks in Michigan on the lake.

He offered to pick up some firewood for our outside fireplace and bought me a couple of citronella candles. He even offered to wave at me from the back door behind the screen where the bugs can't fly.

I do admit, as an adult I haven't camped much since by daughters were freshmen in high school.

We went to Brown County one summer weekend. Keely, who didn't want to go in the first place nearly stepped on a snake lying across one of the trails. After a near panic attack we calmed her down, burned our hot dogs over the fire and went to bed.

An hour or so later, the park rangers came driving through the campsite yelling for people to get to the cement restrooms. A tornado was close.

I picked up Bo who was about two and we started running. We passed an elderly couple struggling so I handed off my baby to Keely and told her to run. I helped the elderly lady to the building and we huddled inside the restroom as the roar of a tornado went over our heads.

I remember Krissy moaning, "I don't want to die in a dirty bathroom."

It finally ended and we walked back to our sopping wet campsite. Some moron had left the tent flap open and everything got soaked. Yes, I was the moron who tried to toss things inside it to keep them from blowing before running.

By now, all three kids were crying, we had no place to sleep. So, we jumped into the car and headed out of the park toward home. On the way out I ran over a raccoon that jumped out in front of the car. Now, I too was sobbing.

The next day Krissy and I had to go back to pick up our tent and supplies. Keely refused to get in the car.

Krissy just called me having returned from a family vacation in South Carolina with her husband's family and three small kids.

"Thank god we're home. It was 95 degrees everyday. There was a terrible storm there and I didn't want to die in a swamp in the middle of South Carolina," she moaned.

Maybe my husband does have the right idea. A nice room in a hotel with an indoor Jacuzzi and pool might be just the ticket--just not in Newark or Detroit.