Vacation in …

… eight days and counting. Yep, the Disenchanted Family is actually taking a second vacation this summer, something that rarely happens has never happened in the entire history of 18 year marriage. The past few years have been especially bad. Last year, we only managed four days in Arkansas; the year before, six days in Kansas. It seems like something was always rearing its ugly, time-sucking head: my research agenda, The Coach’s football and track schedules, various teaching and administrative obligations. Last year was especially f*cked because of that pesky little thing called tenure. It takes a good deal of time to fight for your job (even when the fight is, well, really not a fight at all).

Now, I won’t lie to you. I have had some fabulous vacations over the past couple of years, sans The Coach: Prague and Amsterdam, Taxco and Mexico City, Lima and the Sacred Valley of Peru. Plus, we’ve really capitalized our time off at Christmas, with trips to Lake Placid, the Insight Bowl, and Roswell. So why am I so excited about my upcoming trip? Maybe it’s because I can finally take time off in the summer (however minusculethat time still is)? Maybe it’s because we have been trying to go back to South Dakota for, uh, 10 or 11 years now – ever since my cousin’s first marriage? Who knows? Who cares? All I know is that The Coach picked up our Trip Tix on Monday*and we’re going out west — to Fort Laramie, Little Big Horn, Devil’s Tower, Mount Rushmore, and the Badlands, with other sights mixed in. Woot!

* Good grief, I haven’t had a trip tix in years! We decided to join AAA after our lovely adventures around Atlanta. While we didn’t need a tow truck then, I could just visualize being stuck on the side of the road in Wyoming, narey a tow truck in sight.