During most of my childhood, my father was a high school math teacher. While he typically worked most summers as an engineer/draftsman (including stints at Grumman Aerospace in Bethpage, N.Y., working peripherally on the Apollo Lunar Module), he always put aside the last two weeks of August for a family vacation. For those two weeks, my parents, my sister and I traveled to various parts of the United States in our 1963 Ford Country Squire station wagon (with the requisite faux wood panel sides!). 

My parents would typically identify a part of the country (e.g., New England, Southeast, Midwest) for a particular summer sojourn, and each of the four of us could pick out at least one city or attraction to visit during that trip. We often stayed in local motels (usually with a pool!) because back then, even Holiday Inn was above the budget of a high school teacher.

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