I'm leaving in a CR-V

This afternoon I am leaving straight for work for our second mini-vacation. Unfortunately, lately it seems like all of vacation time is spent in the car, driving to and from various places. Riding in the car is anything but relaxing for me, so I am not looking forward to the additional thousands of miles that we'll be putting on my car over the next five days.

Weather.com is calling for scattered thunderstorms over the next few days, but partly cloudy on Saturday, with a high of 86 degrees. I'm crossing my fingers that it turns into "mostly sunny" with a similar high. After our Cape May mini-vacation was more or less rained out (I'll post about that sometime soon.) I do NOT want a repeat of that.

Here's where we'll be spending our time on Friday and most of Saturday:

The "cabin"

Personally, I hope to spend most of my time in the sun, on this dock.

Isn't it pretty?

I didn't sleep well last night, so I'm feeling particularly cranky and negative about this whole trip in general. Murphy isn't really welcome at the cabin. If he comes, he needs to stay outdoors, including at night. D and I struggled with this for a long time. Murphy has never spent the night alone, has never spent the night in his crate, and has never spent the night outside. He has also never spent the night outside alone near the water (he'd be the boat garage so he'd hear the water lapping up again the shore all night.) As much as we like to think that Murphy is a tough, outdoor dog, he's really a baby at heart. He's a people-lover and doesn't like being alone. On the few occasions that we've had someone else watch him, they're comment always is, "he was really good but he followed me EVERYWHERE." That's the kind of dog he is. He likes to be where the people are, even at home. It's annoying to some, but we love it.

So, after we decided that Murphy should not come to the cabin, we had to decide if we wanted to board him ($25/night plus a $13 late fee if we picked him up after noon on Sunday, which we most definitely would), or come up with an alternative plan. Ultimately, we decided to have Murph stay with D's mom, since she really enjoys his company. Unfortunately for us, this means a LOT of additional driving. Tonight, we driving to Delaware via Baltimore to drop off D's brother. That trip alone is usually around 6 hours. Then tomorrow, depending on the weather, we will either drive to Hershey Park or find something else to do around Delaware. Then, we'll head to the cabin on Thursday evening and spend Friday and most of Saturday there. Saturday evening we'll return to Delaware (an 1.5 to 2 hour drive) to spend the night there again and to get Murphy. On Sunday morning, we'll return to the cabin with Murphy (who is fine being outside if we're there) so that he can do some swimming. He's a really good swimmer and super cute about it. D loves it because when Murphy does "manly" dog things, he feels like less of a wimp for loving and owning a foofy white dog. Plus, he's super cute when he's wet.

It sounds less and less like a vacation to me when I write out all of the driving that we'll be doing. But, it's done and decided, so I need to get over my cranky attitude and make the most of it. Since we'll be on the road a lot, I probalby won't post for the next few days. Wish me luck on hopefully getting some relaxation and sun!