Field of sunflowers
Terri Webster Schrandt

Sunday Stills: Why I Chose a #Staycation Over a #Vacation

This week’s Sunday Stills theme is “Staycation or Vacation.” This should resonate with most bloggers as we head toward the holiday season (there! I said it!).

The US is celebrating the Labor Day holiday typically observed on the first Monday of September. Students head back to school, and many folks begin their laser-focus back at work, already counting down to the next set of holiday weekends coming in November and December.

Patriotic Decor
Patriotic Decor

As most of you know, we enjoyed a month-long road trip through six states in June and July. We spent half of the time camping in our RV and the other half staying with family and friends. Great fun and celebrations, heat, and family drama punctuated the time spent.

Our neighbors invited us to go camping in mid-August, but the heat in Washington state deterred my interest, especially after spending most of our road trip in intense heat. So we stayed home. We’ve also toyed with the idea of camping this month, but we are faced with many projects and tasks around the home.

So “stay-cation” it is!

Here is why.

A staycation gives me the opportunity to indulge in a little home decorating. After all, if I’m spending a good amount of time here, it might as well be homey!

autumn decor dining table
Living Room Decor

“Some people look for a beautiful place. Others make a place beautiful.” – Hazrat Inayat Khan

After almost two years of pandemic travel restrictions, I believe many folks turned toward making their homes the place to be. Once we moved out of Northern California suburbia to rural Eastern Washington, we focused on making our new home and property our haven.

sunflowers dawn view
Why leave when I have this view?

When we lived in Sacramento, one of my favorite vacation destinations was Lake Tahoe, just 90 miles away.

Zephry cove lake Tahoe
Lake Tahoe’s Zephyr Cove

Now I feel as if we live in Lake Tahoe, surrounded by pine-forested mountains and local lakes and rivers.

Rural road walk
Daily walks on the main road

I’m sure I’ve bragged about Nine Mile Falls enough but isn’t it gorgeous? And only 9 miles away from home.

Nine Mile Falls in Jade

“My goal is to build a life I don’t need a vacation from.” – Rob Hill Sr.

Have you ever been to a destination wedding? Last June, my next-door neighbors hosted their son’s wedding on their 5-acre property. Local family and friends loved it, (we could walk to it) but the bride and groom’s friends were all from the west side of Washington and camped in their RVs. Here is the scene from our backyard to theirs.

Backyard Camping
Backyard Camping

Last week, we drove 20 minutes to Lake Spokane Campground and played on the SUP. The dogs loved the shade and water, as we did. Aero kept a watch as Hans paddled.

Dog watching
Day at the Lake

Nearby at the lake was this retired couple floating in their tubes with possible alcoholic beverages. This was taken at 11:30 am. This image was last on “my card” on 8/31. I added my watermark.

Floating on the Lake
They must be retired

Staycations are wonderful but we do have to travel. Here is a gallery of actual vacation spots we’ve enjoyed in the last 5 years: Yosemite and Grand Canyon NP; Prescott, Sedona, and Scottsdale, Arizona; San Diego and Sacramento Delta in California; Hawaii’s Big Island, Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada

Green helmeted cyclist (my hubby) admires stunning view of Yosemite Falls Spring 2016
Gateway to Yosemite
Painnted Half Dome
South Rim of the Grand Canyon in snow
Desert Sunrise
Sedona, AZ
Watson Lake
Gold and Citrine Sunset
San Diego Harbor Sunset
Hawaii Big Island Hamakua Coastline
Hello from Valley of Fire

The featured image at the top is the sunflower fields that are less than 10 miles from our home.

Inspiring Photo Challenges

Each week I am inspired by my fellow bloggers’ photo challenges. I find it fun to incorporate these into my Sunday Stills weekly themes.

Sunday Stills Photo Challenge Reminders

Sunday Stills weekly challenge is easy to join. You have all week to share and link your post.

  • Remember to title your blog post a little differently than mine.
  • Please create a new post for the theme or link a recent one.
  • Entries for this theme can be posted all week.
  • Tag your post “Sunday Stills.”
  • Don’t forget to create a pingback to this post so that other participants can read your post.
  • I also recommend adding your post’s URL to the comments.

This Week’s Featured Bloggers

Sunday Stills is a wonderful community of bloggers and photographers who desire to connect with one another. Below are this week’s links from bloggers who shared photos of vacations or staycations. I add these all week as new links are posted.

I can’t wait to read about your vacation or staycation. If you celebrate any holidays soon tell us all about it. Have a fantastic week and holiday!

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114 comments

  1. Looks like you have had some wonderful holidays Terri, but you also live in a beautiful place too, sounds like you have the best of both worlds. We live in a holiday destination too but I do love a vacation 🙂

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  4. I love your holiday destinations, Terri. Like you. we’ve been staycationing for the last couple of years after a move, sorting out the house and garden, but I’m ready to start planning for a holiday now.

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  14. The interior of your home looks fabulous, Terri! And it is so nice that you have Lake Tahoe scenes close by. I love that quote about making your life/lifestyle so, that you don’t need a vacation from it. Sometimes I feel that this is what we have accomplished. Although, a real vacation, as in a period without stress, worry, work, and the need to make money, would be nice from time to time. 🙂

    Happy Labor Day!

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    • Thank you, Liesbet! I always knew the Spokane area was quite beautiful the first time I saw it in 2010. Who knew life would take this turn? In your case, living on the road is so full of adventure, but real life has to be dealt with. I suppose its fun for you guys to engage in work while sitting in a beautiful location!

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  15. The sunflowers Header is beautiful, Terri, and what a lovely job you’ve done on your new home. It does look like a place that offers you all that you need in life- except, of course, family. Here’s wishing you the happiest of Labour Days!

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  20. The sunflowers are staggeringly beautiful, and your home is beautifully decorated. It’s not hard to stay close to home when there are great NP’s close by. We’re blessed to live 30 minutes from the Great Smoky Mountain NP. It can be crowded in summer, but we love it the rest of the year. Have a great week! Joe

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  21. I love this quote: “My goal is to build a life I don’t need a vacation from.” – Rob Hill Sr. While I agree with that and strive for that, I love to travel, so that’s always going to be a part of my life as long as I am able to do it. My philosophy is it it’s good to have a place that you love to come back to after being somewhere you loved going to. You have a lovely view and I really enjoyed the photos of the other places as well.

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  23. So much beauty everywhere at your new home, inside and out! I agree that staycations and vacations both have their place. We’ve enjoyed many day trips to Mt. Rainier and other parks this year, that I guess you could call staycations, though when you’re retired it’s just part of life! 😉 We do our serious traveling during the shoulder seasons. We have a trip to Hawaii next month to celebrate our 40th anniversary and I’m so looking forward to that! 🙂

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  32. I agree with Jodie, your decorations are fabulous. You have such a flair and lots of space to decorate. Without that flair for decorating, I gravitate toward being in beautiful places. But you have done both! You are right about Spokane looking like Lake Tahoe without the lake, though. I can’t wait to see it! When I get back, we are going to start remodeling Cindy’s home – which will include a counter with chairs like you suggested. The garage sale is October 7-8 if you want to come back and shop! LOL

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  37. With you wholeheartedly re the staycation Terri! I guess part of it is that like you we feel like we live in paradise so why travel elsewhere! On the other hand, also like you we enjoy a change of scenery and visits with friends and family as well. I guess the answer is finding the right balance. Your home is looking terrific so enjoy the fruits of your labor!!

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  38. It was so lovely to read your post Terri, my first in a long while since being on a blogging break and away on holidays, and I was able to relate to your staycation after all you’ve had going on! I love the sunflower fields and as we experienced extreme heat in the UK I actually feel we’re on the same wavelength (season wise) for the first time! Your ‘new home’ is a great spot to take a break :). It’s good to be back with you.

    My post is all about my recent month away taking only carry-on luggage with me. https://debs-world.com/2022/09/04/how-i-travelled-to-the-other-side-of-the-world-for-a-month-with-only-carry-on-luggage/

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  39. I’m definitely on the side of staycations, Terri. When you live near the beach, staycations are great. Yes, it gets busy during the summer, but now we’re into September, the schools are back, and the beach near us is almost all ours again. It’s bliss again.

    I can see why you love to stay home too. Your home decor is brilliant. I love being at home.
    At first, the header photo of the sunflowers was what I thought was your garden. But I see it was a few miles away. I’m glad you are making the most of the surrounding area of where you live. It won’t be long before those autumn colours appear again. Hooray!

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    • To echo your sentiment, hooray for staycations and autumn, Hugh! What a great shot of the pups in the beach, spoiled much? LOL! Looks like an ad for healthy dog food 🙂 Thank you so much, I do have fun decorating seasonally inside. I literally have to show Hans each time I change something. I know he appreciates it.

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  42. We’ve done a staycation this year, too, mainly because we’re doing home renos, which began the 2nd week of August and are still going on. There’s been 3 different companies hired for 3 different projects. The 3rd project starts next week, while #2 is slowly finishing up. We’ve spent more than we would have by taking 6 of our normal vacations, but the sprucing up to our home is worth it.

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  47. You live in a beautiful area so I can see why you find plenty to enjoy close to home. But you know I have itchy feet so you won’t be surprised to hear I’m firmly in the ‘vacation’ camp! Over here in the UK we use ‘staycation’ to mean any holiday taken in our own country as opposed to abroad, so that’s the definition I’ve worked with in my post: https://www.toonsarah-travels.blog/gallery-should-i-stay-or-should-i-go/

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  53. You sure have captured many memorable images the last five years Terri. Looking at the view from your new house, I can’t say that I blame you for favoring a “staycation” – the sunflower field is amazing.

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  55. All the views in your vacation photos are so stunning, but your neighborhood does have great nature too. I also can relate to the joy of home decoration and organization since the pandemic started. A lot of nice inspirations on the internet and there’s increasing variety of home goods we can buy online too. I didn’t really decorate my apartment while living in Japan to save money, but after moving back to Bangkok, it’s been an ongoing project of mine, although I’m only doing my bedroom currently because I want to let my other family members decide about the rest of our house, haha. Making our home less cluttered and more beautiful helps improve our mental health even more than I expected!

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