Vacation Time

Today's my last day at work for three weeks. I haven't taken a three-week vacation in four years; it's always been a week here or ten days there. I'm really looking forward to this; I'm mentally pretty tired right now and need a break, plus we have tons of fun planned.

We (my wife Peggy, son Nick, and I) fly to New York City and stay with friends in Connecticut for a couple of days. We then all drive to a beach house in NC, with an overnight stay in Washington, DC, which we've never visited before. After a week swimming, golfing, and eating and drinking too much, we drive back to CT, visiting with Tamar Granor and her husband on the way. We plan to do some sightseeing in NYC for a few days, then head home and take a few days to decompress from our vacation.

Another interesting aspect of this vacation is it's the first one since the last three-weeker that I'm not taking my laptop. I made a deal with my friend Tracey from Dallas, who will also be at the beach house with her family (three families altogether) that I wouldn't bring mine if she doesn't bring hers. She even more rabidly addicted to email than I am, so it'll be harder on her than it will on me. We'll see if she actually arrives sans computer or not, given the temptation of high-speed Internet access in the house.

What started as three friends (Betsy, Tracey, and I) who met in graduate school in Dallas in 1980 has expanded to three families who vacation together almost every year. The great thing is that you could take any two people out of the group, including kids, and they'd have a great time together. That's pretty rare in my experience. Like the saying goes, old friends are the best friends.