Slang tries to make language more efficient. Tickets become “tix.” Pictures become “pics.” Recently we took a “vacay.” That’s vacation for you less cool people.

We met our two daughters and attached others for a week of running around Charleston, South Carolina, and Savanah, Georgia. One of those was our new Colombian son-in-law, Jhonattan.

Abby met Jhonattan while working in Bogota. They were engaged, and wedding plans accelerated when Abby took a new position in Jordan. Not the Jordan by Belle Plaine. It’s the one by Syria. She will move to that interesting part of the world in January. That might be a column sometime.

There is a theory that vacations are relaxing. I guess that’s possible. Apparently, we didn’t get that memo. Especially the day going and the day coming back are about as relaxing as teaching your 15-year-old to drive.

First, there is flying. I admit that part of me doesn’t really believe big giant machines can get off the ground and fly through the air. I sort of understand how a tractor works. But I sure don’t understand how an airplane works. I am skeptical every time I get in one. I make Pam hold my hand when we take off and land. So far, we haven’t crashed, so that seems to be working.

As for relaxing on vacation, here is one day:

Get up, pack suitcases, stuff those into rental car, drive to Savanah airport, drop off car, get to right gate lugging luggage, get on plane, fly to Atlanta, find your way to next gate, fly to Minneapolis, get off plane, hope luggage also made that flight, find shuttle to your car, hopefully with luggage, start car in the cold, drive home.

What could go wrong?

Lots. All one can do is hope for no glitches. We know what Murphy’s Law says about glitches.

Once you get to wherever you’re going, it does get better. In between the going-day and the coming home-day are days of walking and eating and walking and eating.

Every vacation, I have the hope that the walking-off calories will match the eating-on calories. In the end, the steps are never a match for the candy shops and bakeries. That’s what our scale tells me when we get back. But, gosh, those pralines were good.

Between airports and cafes and bars and stores, one sees a lot of people. I mostly like people. People-watching is a pleasant way to spend time while Pam’s doing whatever it is she does. With the parade of young, old, and in-between, you know that each of them has a story. It’s like looking at the cover of a book.

Sometimes people have clues. A kid with a youth baseball shirt, an old man with a Vietnam Veteran hat, a young woman with an infant and diaper bag in tow. It’s like you can see a page in their book.

I’m used to seeing people I know. In Sleepy Eye, I recognize most everyone. In New Ulm, I cross paths with people I know. Even in the Cities, I occasionally see a familiar face. When you’re a thousand miles from home, you don’t know nobody.

A week of traveling means hundreds of unfamiliar faces. It reminds me that I only know a tiny percentage of the planet’s eight billion inhabitants. I, myself am exactly .0000000125% of the Earth’s population. I find that humbling.

I feel like I should know more people. Then I get lazy. Instead of going out on a cold winter night to make new friends at Meyer’s Bar, I sit at home, eating snacks and watching reruns of Gilligan’s Island. Oh well.

Besides walking and eating on our vacay, there was driving to various sights. This was in a rental car. Rental cars are fun because I don’t own them. After getting used to the push-button shifting on our Hyundai, I started to enjoy our temp car.

There was a saying from my younger days that went, “Drive it like you don’t got a dime in it!” That’s not exactly true for a rental car given the large fees. But one is liberated from the stresses of car ownership.

Speaking of driving, I am a big fan of GPS. I should have gotten that 40 years ago. I remember driving around the Cities looking for a party at 1:00 in the morning once. I never found it. I’ll never know how much fun I could have had if I had GPS then.

If you’re my age, you remember maps. For our younger readers, those were large pieces of paper that unfolded sixteen different ways to their full size. Then, you’d hold the three-by-three-foot map on the steering wheel, glancing rapidly back and forth between the road and tiny little lines on the map.

If Pam was along, she would hold the map. That was better in some ways. But then she would yell at me if I missed a turn. The gentle sweet voice of the woman in my phone never yells at me. If I mess up, she just makes a beeping sound and reroutes. GPS has probably saved our marriage and a couple hundred gallons of gas.

A primary reason people deal with the stress of travel is to be warm in the winter. Going in the house accomplishes the same thing, but it doesn’t match walking on the beach. We did that one day. I was guilty of smirking when I thought of you miserable people back here in zero-degree wind chills.

Now we’re back, and I know our friends in Florida and Texas are smirking at us. Some of them will get sunburn. I suppose that is our revenge. Remind me of that when we have a high of five-below next week.

Finally, I want to talk about what no one talks about, but everybody thinks about. We encountered some nice bathrooms in South Carolina and Georgia. They were pretty clean, and there was always toilet paper. They had great mirrors. But face it. The best part of coming home is returning to your own bathroom.

The song “Home Sweet Home” is two hundred years old. But the sentiment is the same:

“Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,

Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.” And my bathroom.

— Randy Krzmarzick farms on the home place west of Sleepy Eye, where he lives with his wife, Pam.