As warm and warmer weather moves in and school sessions end for the summer, I hear of more people taking vacations. Some drive or fly or travel by motorcycle to Wisconsin, Ohio or Virginia, or just take a short jaunt in Illinois by train.

Usually people plan these trips in advance, even if some of the preparations aren’t finished until the last minute.

The other day I took an unexpected mini-vacation with no real planning except that I’d had a dental checkup scheduled since the previous appointment six months ago. I wasn’t even doing the same job then, but late in the day on a Tuesday still looked like a suitable time slot. On the appointed afternoon, I left work more than an hour before the usual closing time. I had a sense of freedom, like skipping the last class of the day at school but with no retribution in store.

I handed in my insurance form at the office window and sat down to wait for my turn. The magazine I selected turned out to be the last monthly issue of Life. I looked at articles about very premature babies and about older people falling in love. I saw how much the area devastated by the eruption of Mount St. Helens has recovered in 20 years.

I had leisure to browse through the pages as much as I wanted while the employees behind the reception room door caught up on a busy afternoon schedule.

When it was my turn in the reclining chair, all I had to do was relax, sometimes with my mouth open, and there was no bad news. In between procedures, I scanned the room for decorative items of interest, noting especially a so-called hillbilly toothbrush with a stub of corncob for the brush.

Then I let the staff set up my next appointment and went back out into the balmy air, with no bill to settle just then.

I decided there was no rush to go home. The evening before I’d enjoyed walking at dusk in a misty Eden of pink and white blooming trees. This was a chance to enjoy the outdoors by daylight, without time constraints from approaching darkness. With a small errand in mind, I walked downtown, wondering if springtime had been so idyllic in other years. At the library, I scanned a dozen or so game books for an elusive piece of information, not finding exactly what I wanted just then but entertained with other curiosities, such as ideas for children’s birthday parties and directions for making flibbers from old newspapers.

I had a big stack of papers at home for practice material. I didn’t understand exactly what the last diagram in the instructions meant and considered checking out the book for reference in case I decided to try. There were two copies on the shelf, so anyone else with more important reasons for knowing how could still have the necessary information. Then I ran into a slight mental block about checking out a children’s book. Wishing to appear somewhat businesslike, on a vacation evening or not, I decided it would be best to check out an adult book too. Eventually I concluded I didn’t need the children’s book after all. I could still set aside adult responsibilities and spend unstructured time like a child. I hadn’t been doing anything productive for several hours already. I might as well take the whole evening off.

I picked an author I liked from previous reading and maintained enough time sense to choose a short book of short stories so I could finish a whole selection that night without missing too much sleep. I read the shortest first and finished the others too. One story was set in Paris, another on an island near Nova Scotia and one not far from where I grew up. It wasn’t quite a glimpse of home, since the author’s experiences in the area were from the time of Laura Ingalls Wilder, but there were familiar references. When the text mentioned the land between the Platte River and the state border, I knew where that was without consulting a map. In case I felt too warm, the narrative also included a blizzard.

Bringing my mind back to Illinois, I realized it had been a satisfying vacation, with no tickets to buy, no packing, no travel exhaustion, no spiels from tour guides, no decisions about motels and restaurants, and it didn’t cost me anything, unless the insurance company decides I need to pay part of the dental fee. Some vacations have a deductible.