This summer my family is leaving Vacationland and traveling across the country to spend a fun filled week together in San Diego. Other than a side trip to Yellowstone Park while visiting relatives in Montana, this is the first time in a long while we are vacationing in the same place at the same time for more than a long weekend.

We’ve tried spending longer periods of time vacationing together, but we all had our own great expectations of what a family vacation would be. As a result, it never turned into quite the “Very Brady Vacation” I had envisioned. I always came home wondering how Mike and Carol, and countless other families, do it. How can families spend so much time together having fun, while learning something from their experiences and then come home still speaking to one another.

My family never sang songs while waiting patiently in line to get into an amusement park, beach or museum. Nor did we earnestly listen to what each of us wanted to do on a particular day. Not one point in time did we all have smiles on our faces unless we were in separate rooms or various places engaged in separate activities. And there were times when, though none of us will ever admit it, if one of us was temporarily missing the rest of us silently speculated if that was necessarily a bad thing. Eventually, I resigned myself to the fact that my family was just not ready for a vacation package of any type, and I would happily stay put here in Vacationland during the summers

Maybe I am very naA? ?ve and maybe I believe everything I see in travel brochures and advertisements, but I really do wonder, “How do other families do it?” How do they go on vacation and enjoy each others company while doing all the same things? Are all families but mine like the Brady Bunch and able to spend all that time together and stay in one piece? My family can’t be the only one who hasn’t mastered the art of vacationing.

Then I heard something a wise man – Jerry Seinfeld – once said. He confirmed my suspicions when he said, “There is no such thing as fun for the whole family.” And, I figured out that’s where I went wrong. I always assumed everyone in my family had the same interests and wanted to do the same things during our vacations.

And according to the local police log, I’m not the only one who falls into that trap. One sunny day in June, a Canadian man dropped his wife and kids off on Shore Road because he was tired of the arguing about what to do during their stay in Vacationland. All that he (and obviously he mistakenly assumed his family) wanted to do was to see the lighthouse he had heard so much about. I believe the straw that broke the camel’s back was when, after arriving at the lighthouse, the man got out of the car to get a better view of the most photographed lighthouse in the country. But his family begrudgingly remained put and waited for him to return to drive them back to the campground where they were staying.

On the way back, he listened to their complaining about the excursion and decided he had had enough and stopped the car and told them to get out. Luckily for them and for the rest of us, he eventually returned and picked them up.

Most of the people who read the police log consider the man a local hero, which again confirms my suspicions that I do not have the only Un-Brady-like family in the general population. It’s easy to fall into the trap of what a perfect family vacation is all about.

I am aligning myself with Jerry Seinfeld. Not only is there no such thing as fun for the whole family, there is no such thing as the perfect family vacation. I’m leaving Maine during the best months of the year because the San Diego area offers something for everyone in my family.

So with all that in mind and also remembering past family vacation attempts, I am going to try to be as patient as humanly possible with this impending time together with my loved ones. I am going to try very hard not to kick anyone out of the car or leave anyone stranded on top of a roller coaster.