Everyone looks forward to school breaks. After continuous days of work, the Christmas break, winter break, spring break, and the long summer break are all much-awaited breathers. During these breaks, some parents take time off from their work as well. Everyone wants some R & R. Simply to be away from the stress that work and school gives often times.
A break like this is a wonderful opportunity also for family bonding. Some may opt to go to the mall, watch movies, to go camping (if the weather permits) or do out of town trips.
It is a good idea to go around your area and look for interesting places that the family has not been to. Instead of those tiring long trips that would entail a lot of packing and unpacking, hours of drive, or the costly plane and hotel fare, short-distance trips to nearby cities could just do the trick. It is a matter of researching and asking from friends for nice getaways that could make the family have worthwhile vacations which are fun and relaxing.
Many cities of California boast of many wonderful places that could be visited. From San Jose, some may take an hour or about 2 hours of drive, but if you are willing to do this, here are some suggestions worth your look:
1. The Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum and Planetarium. This is an interesting museum that houses a collection of Egyptian artifacts including pre-dynastic times through Egypt’s early Islamic era. The architecture of the museum is so beautiful. Other than being informative, visitors would feel like being in Egypt to stand next to walls with hieroglyphic writings on the walls, and to see replicas of the pharaohs tomb and their mummified bodies. Located in San Jose, CA, they are open Mondays through Saturdays.
2. Jelly Belly. Fairfield, California is the home of this yummy and colorful factory. Huge and unique portraits of famous personalities can be seen done in hundreds of colorful jellybeans. Everything is just colorful inside, but everyone should look forward to the wonderful tour of the factory itself. The tour would, naturally, explain how this delicious treats are made. Compared to other boring factories, it is quite fun to watch conveyors and huge basins holding very colorful sweets. At the end of the tour, everyone is given a helping of free jellies. There is a shop which showcases all their available flavors, not to mention some fun souvenirs with their unmistakable logo on most of them. They are open Mondays through Fridays.
3. Mrs. Grossman’s Sticker Factory. The oldest and largest sticker factory in the United States, this is a fun house of hundreds of sticker designs and new ones always being expected to be born. Located at Petaluma, California, the factory runs 24 hours a day, printing millions of stickers daily. They are open to the public Mondays through Fridays, entertaining people of all ages. A one-hour tour is done, but by reservation only. Other than the tour, children would have a field day with free stickers and a short crafts activity with the staff. Of course, a store is ready for everyone to purchase from their hundreds of designs and themes.
4. Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center. If you love Peanuts, Snoopy and the rest of the gang, this is something you should not miss. Found in Sta. Rosa, California, this museum houses memorabilia, and all the art work of Charles Schulz. His works were previously housed in Sonoma for forty years, but when a museum was built– also to commemorate the 50th year of Peanuts– his friends and wife chose Sta. Rosa instead. In this place, your eyes would feast on the genius of Schulz’s hands, but you would discover how simple man he actually was. Everyone would be awed at the huge mural of Lucy and Charlie Brown, made of thousands of comic strips printed on ceramic tiles. They open daily, except on Tuesdays.
5. U-Pick Farms. A big group of farms and ranches in Brentwood, California called Harvest Time sell some of California’s greatest produce. But to make things more fun for buyers, many of them have U-pick farms that allow people to pick whatever they would buy. Obviously a summer activity, this is a wonderful family adventure where everyone would have a blast picking strawberries, peaches, cherries, apricots and nectarines. It is a must to call them or check their websites for availability of the fruits ready to be picked.
So pick your choice. Look into the interest of most of your family members. But even if the place may seem uninteresting at first, try to be more adventurous and open. You would not know until you visit them. Remember, the important thing is for all of you to unwind and have fun together as a family. It would be all worth it knowing that you are taking a breather with your loved ones and discovering new things around you.
