Planning to escape

After the craziness of the past few weeks (month?) and given the impending craziness of the next few weeks (month?) The Dude and I decided that we need to get away - somewhere - anywhere - even if it's just for a day. We started tossing around ideas, but most of them were too expensive. Tropical vacations to a deserted island just aren't feasible to plan at the last minute when living on a fixed income, sadly enough.

So we came up with the next best thing. Saturday afternoon, after we get done with the CF Walk, we are going to the lake. My friend that I took to Kansas City last week is going to bring her two kids up on Saturday, and we are all going to go out to the lake while we scope out our prime camping spot. Once she knows where it is (in case of emergency, because oh darn, there's no cell reception out there) she's going to bring all 4 kids (her two plus Alex and Daniel) back here to the house to spend the night.

It's a dinky little lake, but it's in a beautiful setting. We are planning on taking a tent, some chairs, some firewood, some food, and some fishing poles. And maybe a bottle of wine just for kicks. We are going to relax, enjoy the gorgeously hot weather, fish until we can't fish anymore, and just enjoy some much-needed peace and quiet, and head back home Sunday morning (or afternoon).

I honestly think that the best part of the whole thing is that my phone does not work out there. At all. We will be totally unreachable. We haven't really had any significant time to ourselves since our trip to Oklahoma City, but even on that trip we didn't have much time to ourselves, unless we were driving.

Next weekend, we have another trip to Oklahoma for my friend's wedding reception...and then the kids will be out of school in a few weeks, so things are just going to get crazier and crazier until we leave for our "real" vacation, otherwise known as TMOART:2012 (The Mother of All Road Trips). This is the 3rd time that we've done this - we're going back to my "home" in Pennsylvania with lots of other stops along the way. At least this time, I'll have The Dude with me to be my driving partner and I won't have to do the whole thing by myself.

I am so ready to get away...even if it's just for one night!