The Endless Summer Vacation

It's summer, and for many it's time for that big summer vacation.  Once again I'm here to offer a travel destination suggestion for your summer road trip enjoyment.  The title of my post alludes to a famous 1966 surfing documentary (movie geeks can give yourself a gold star if you got the reference), but my suggestion for a super keen summer vacation has nothing to do with surfing.  Nope, it's the state of Arkansas in this 1977 Tour Guide...

 In particular it's the State's Tourism Division ad that's caught my eye...

Arkansas is many things, but I was not aware it was the land of the conquistadors as depicted in the lower left of the above ad.  When I think about conquistadors in the US I think of Juan Ponce de León traipsing around Florida searching for the Fountain of Youth.  Although from the look of this ad maybe those Arkansas conquistadors were the inspiration for the 1958 low budget conquistador horror film Giant from the Unknown...



I'd gladly travel to Arkansas to see a giant zombie conquistador.

I didn't visit Arkansas in 1977, or ever for that matter, but I have been to Lake Cumberland in Kentucky in 1979...

In the late 70's we had neighbors who went on a Lake Cumberland houseboat vacation, and proclaimed how utterly remarkable it was.  My father was sold lock, stock and barrel (or maybe it's hook, line and sinker) on the houseboat vacation idea. Honestly, it sounded like a reasonably fun idea especially to a kid like myself who loved to swim.  Although once we rented our houseboat one little revelation put the kibosh on any sort of aquatic activities...

Back page of Lake Cumberland Guide

Hey you people in the water, and that guy in midair may want to listen to this: our houseboat's toilet (and I assume all Lake Cumberland 70's houseboats) flushed directly into the lake.  Yes, you read that correctly. Our toilet made a grinding sound like a garbage disposal when flushed, and emptied into the lake. If anyone reading this knows what's going on at Lake Cumberland today please tell me this is no longer allowed.  I hope by 2013 holding tanks for human waste are now mandatory. 

So yeah no swimming for us, and frankly, lake swimming is never that desirable even in the best conditions (Swimmer's Itch anyone?). Within about two days the houseboat vacation quickly had wore out its welcome.  We cut it short, and spent the remaining days in the small lodge owned by the people we rented the houseboat from. It was in the lodge's restaurant where I learned to appreciate biscuits and honey - this is my fondest memory from the houseboat experience.

While leafing thru the Lake Cumberland guide I noticed an ad for a motel whose name I think is kinda apropos pertaining to the unsavory houseboat toilet situation.  Maybe we should have dropped in for a stay...

...or maybe this is just where all the UPS guys stay.

Lastly, there's another reason I titled this post "The Endless Summer Vacation." It's because this is most likely my last official blog post.

I hate to say goodbye permanently, and I reserve the right to reactivate this blog in the future, so instead of goodbye think of this as just a sabbatical - a possibly indefinite sabbatical.

For a while now I feel I've just been scraping the bottom of the barrel.  I'm not a collector, and much of the "unique cool" stuff I own has been posted.  Continuing Quasi-Interesting Paraphernalia Inc. in it's current form is simply becoming a drag.  If I were to persist it would just be more lame attempts to crack wise about stuff like this - a 1963 Adult Games booklet from Dell...

...and here's the back for those who care.

Truthfully, the world is not missing out on anything as I step away from the blogging.

The good news is instead of devoting more of my time to lackluster posts, I'm planning to start a new Internet endeavor that is purely creative.  So if you enjoyed my style of "humor" I hope to be back on the Internet in the fall doing something different.  I'll post an update in the near future to let those who wish to know my whereabouts what I'm up too.
 

I still plan to keep an eye on this blog.  Answer comment questions,  correct any typos I should happen to find in old posts (I know there's a lot), and attempt to fix the never-ending broken YouTube links.

I want to thank "QIPI" readers, and my blogger friends for a great time these past 7 years. Please stay in touch. I always appreciate and reply to all personal email.

So without further ado, I depart to do other things.  I thought I could come up with something clever to sign-off with, but I think Carol Burnett's signature closing song pretty much sums up my feelings right now...