My husband has been busy looking through literature, and perusing Internet websites that are of interest to him, seeking out a venue that might appeal to us for a brief summer getaway. At this time of year he usually becomes restless, looking for a change in our routine lives which, though pleasurable enough, don't offer too many surprises of the outdoors variety.

We usually end up returning to the Waterville Valley of the White Mountain range in New Hampshire, there to retrace hiking steps of many previous years when with our children we used to climb the mountains to achieve the pleasure and satisfaction of reaching each summit and viewing the endless march of other mountain tops going far off into the distance.

From the news I can see that a French family sought out a different kind of enterprisingly imaginative family vacation adventure. An unnamed French family of seven, husband, wife, an additional adult male and four children. There is a photograph of them and a video posted on the Internet. The Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram has them as hostages. They are being used as exchange pawns for the demanded freedom of some of the militia's members.

Evidently they were vacationing in northern Cameroon when they were abducted. Cameroonian and Nigerian soldiers are busy searching their whereabouts in the rural border region shared by the two West African countries.

Not exactly to our taste for a vacation adventure, and certainly not one to be envied by many. The family members, and particularly the children, will emerge from this extraordinary experience somewhat the worse for wear. Exposing vulnerable children to this kind of potential danger is not quite the adventure we thought of when we launched decades of mountain climbing recreation as a family tradition.