15-year honeymoon still going strong

With a couple of milestones, the nice hubby’s fire department retirement and our 15th wedding anniversary, we set off in the Nextchaptermobile RV with the Shih Tzu duo, Lola and Ernie in tow. Our big dog Izzy stayed home to keep an eye on our multi-generational household. Setting our GPS for Niagara Falls, a perennial favorite destination for newlyweds, made this trip feel like the latest in a 15-year series of honeymoons.

Honeymoons are a custom originated in 19th century Great Britain and were for upper class couples who would take a bridal tour of relatives who had been unable to attend the wedding. Growing from there, the tourist industry drove the notion of a “get acquainted” trip into a custom celebrating the first blush of married bliss. The term honeymoon doesn’t actually refer to any special phase of the moon, but speaks to the sweetness, or in mead drinking cultures, the drunkenness, of a couple’s first weeks together.

Our goal when we blended our families 15 years ago was to would keep the honeymoon going between football games, soccer matches, dance team performances, graduations and, eventually, weddings and grandbabies. And we have. Even with hectic work and family schedules, we have been to amazing places and have built memories and experiences on our adventures.

Our first honeymoon, the official one anyway, was an epic drive stopping in Hershey, Pennsylvania, going through New York City and up the coast to Cape Cod for whale watching, long walks on the dunes and through the galleries of Provincetown before stopping for a couple of days in Manhattan. It was a wonderful start to our marriage, but had its share of challenges and funny moments.

Hoping to recreate the iconic romantic surf scene in “From Here to Eternity” (look it up, youngsters – Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster made it look like a honeymoon must-do) I failed to factor in the very cold water temperature, even in July, of the New England coast and the chafing potential of sand. Drawing a nice warm, and solo, bath for my new hubby was the nicest thing I could do when we got back from the beach. We had much to learn about the difference between cinematic romantic ideation and the realities of day-to-day life and finding opportunities to laugh and love our way through the life we have.

We are still learning and we are still laughing and are finding that we love sharing our approximate 200-square-foot RV living space with Lola and Ernie. There are more trips ahead, an epic month-long journey this fall to Northern California and points in between, a sunshine chasing trip in the winter and an ever-growing list of American honeymoon destinations to make in this new chapter of our life together.

Lori Law can be reached at lori@columbus.rr.com.