Dear Mrs. Gordon,

During the summer I went on a road trip to Atlanta we went through New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington D.C. and Georgia. In Savannah [Georgia] we visited Juliet Gordon Low’s house. She’s the founder of girl scouts.  We went on a walk on the boardwalk and went on the hop on and hop off trolley tour. We stayed at the Marriott hotel where the trolley had a stop. On one of the houses someone built buy themself so by accident they put the windows up side down.

In Myrtle Beach [South Carolina] it was like amusement park but so much bigger at our hotel there were like 10 pools the one liked the best had water slides and a lazy river. There was a place called roller coaster world but we didn’t go to it because my dad is scared of roller coasters.

In Asheville [North Carolina] we went to the Biltmore house. It is a very big house that a guy named George Vanderbilt owned it was so big there were 250 rooms but we were only allowed to see 42. There was a fountain in the middle of the living room.  They also had a bowling ally and the swimming pool. Gorge had a wife named Edith and a daughter named Cornelia.

Next we went to Williamsburg [Virginia].  We went to Busch Gardens, an amusement park my mom and me went on a super fast roller coaster. I loved it but my mom was scared we were wearing flip-flops so we had to sit on our shoes. It was raining so most rides were closed.

Next we were in Atlanta we went to the Aquarium and the Coco Cola museum what liked about the coco cola museum the most was the tasting room you get to taste soda from all over the world. We were supposed to go to six flags but they were closed because school already stared school already started there.

Then we got back home it was so long my mom said were never doing it again. Hope you liked my letter please write back.

From,

Olivia Fink

Is she right?  Not entirely.  I love to travel but two weeks in a car, a different hotel nearly every night?  Next summer I’m going to the beach and lying on my back for two weeks.  But as for seeing the world and introducing my kids to different cultures – the food, dialects, history, education, landscapes – it was unforgettable.  And I mean that in a good way.

How does your child reflect on their summer vacation?

Source: Entertainment Weekly

I always take several novels when we go on holiday.  It used to be impossible to get much reading done, but now that the kids are slightly older, it’s getting easier.  One of the novels I took on our recent trip was A Visit from the Goon Squad, the 2011 Pulitzer Prize winner, by Jennifer Egan.  My book club actually chose it for our next meeting in September (August is a vacation month for most people), but it was pure coincidence that they chose it as I was already midway through the book when they made the selection.  As much as I enjoyed the book, I’m slightly afraid that I’ll have forgotten much of the story by the time September rolls around.  I may read it again before the meeting date arrives.

The book is a study in time travel, and I can easily see how Egan took home the Pulitzer. Through a collection of short stories, she connects every character to one another and provides a resolution to each story as the book continues with explanations to how characters turn out at various chapters of their lives.  She does it quite skillfully, even using a powerpoint presentation in one chapter to explain the dynamics amongst characters.

Each story is related in some way to Bennie Salazar, who has a teen ager loved punk music and was in a band, or to Sasha, his troubled assistant with a kleptomaniac problem.  They reveal something about a chapter in their lives, through the eyes of someone who intersected with them in the past or future.  It’s basically six degrees of separation as characters either know each other or pass each other by at some point in their lives.

All in all, I enjoyed the book and definitely was eager to pick up on our many train journeys and plane rides.  I would have liked more of the book focused on Sasha.  I really enjoyed the chapters that related to her much more than the ones that related to the egotistical Bennie.

I may follow up this post in September after we have our group discussion.  When we discussed Egan’s The Keep, I recall not many people liking it but The Goon Squad is a very different book.

What is your summer travel read?  Please tell me in the comments below.

Disclosure: I paid for this book and all opinions expressed are my own.

Thursday, July 8: Caves
Thursday, July 15: Ocean Deep
Thursday, July 22: Seasonal Forests
Thursday, July 29: A Special Showing of the new LIFE series, presented by Discovery and BBC