Vacation!

A recent article on CNN highlighted the lack of vacations taken by US workers. It said that in many European countries, the government actually requires — REQUIRES — workers to take a 3-6 week paid vacation.

Our government makes no comment on the issue, although many companies do offer a small amount of vacation time to their employees. I don't know many people who take all of it.

Each year at the Sentinel there is a rush at the end of the year for everyone to get their vacation in. It is a topic at every weekly staff meeting starting in about October, and still, it isn't always used up.

It is hard for us hard-working Americans to just unplug and let the world spin without us for a while. Especially in this economy.

But this year, my family and I decided to take a vacation. It will be a first in eight years, and the last one was just a three day adventure with just one kid, and he was a baby.

We let the kids decide where we would go, and since my schedule as ag and education reporter starts getting really wild in August, we decided to do it sooner rather than later.

I'll admit I am not thrilled about the place they chose, but I have decided to just enjoy the time with my family away from home. We got babysitter for the dog, five hamsters, and the fish, and off we will go. Off to visit four stone faces and a lot of bison.

I hope it is worth all the planning involved, and I hope I can get a glimpse of what is so spectacular about not working that foreign governments require it.