Vacation. It’s like an Entmoot, but we’re not going to war.

Seems as though we’re headed to Nashville for vacation.

This morning the wife registered us for a Hutchmoot. “An entmoot, without the ents.” It sounds like a nice little retreat, although it’s geared much more (almost solely) towards the bookish — such as my wife — rather than visual art types like me. The Rabbit Room is sponsoring the event and retains an interest in the the visual arts, but only one of it’s official members claims such a title and she would rather be performing her foodie duty by cooking for those of us attending.

I can only think of one trip we’ve called “vacation” in our almost nine years of marriage. We made off through Missouri and stopped at the Botanical Gardens to see a Dale Chihuly installation. A lot of our time off of work has been spent traveling for fundraising in order to serve with M-DAT. Other times we didn’t feel travel was financially feasible and opted for a working (i.e. home-improving) staycation.

And often we don’t know where we want to go or what we want to do. Both of us would like to explore the Northeastern and Northwestern corners of the U.S., and both of us would like to travel internationally if we can. We like the idea of meandering around a place with a camera, eating good local food and experiencing some of the local culture. I very much dislike tourist traps, and therein places that are geared to attract tourists. This is one of the reasons I’m not at all interested in going to places like Branson or Las Vegas. And I’m not interested in cruises either, which have become mightily popular, it seems to me, since I graduated from college.

The one vacation we had laid out for ourselves at one point involved travel to Washington D.C. and New York City via Amtrack. And then we learned how expensive it is to take a train in and around the States.

Despite not being able to muster up much interest in the topics the Hutchmoot intends to delve into in 2010, this kind of trip may be the best kind of vacation for us anyway. It gets us away together — road trips are great for conversation — and gives us some intellectual stimulation with like minded people. (A significant part of why my wife wants to attend this particular event is to meet her brain twin face to face). Yes, I think gatherings such as the Hutchmoot could become a somewhat regular vacation destination for us.

If we’re so blessed, our next one might be to the Glen Workshop. I just wish it weren’t in New Mexico in August.