Hasta la vista, Baby!

I am out on vacation. For a whole freaking week. The last time I had a whole week off? April 2007. So this is exciting. I'll be sunning my buns at the Outerbanks for a whole week!!

I deserve some time off. Work has been busy and stressful (and yes, I'll have to check my work emails while on vacation to make sure it gets forwarded to the right people while I'm gone, but as long as I don't have to actually deal with them...).

Last week I had a small attempt on getting away from it all, but instead, ended up with a camping trip from hell.

Don't get me wrong, the friends that planned it, are the same friends that planned the trips last year which were all a blast. Unfortunately though, you can't control the weather. So while freezing our asses off while the temperature in Shenandoah dropped to the 30's, windy enough to blow unattended chairs away, break tent poles and our gazebo, we really did try to make the best of it. But even the fire wasn't strong enough to warm us, and with strong rain on Saturday night, our night was cut short as well.

Let's not forget our hiking expedition, going 7 miles on this loop trail. After 3 hours going down the mountain, having passed the halfway point an hour before, I was already wondering why isn't that the loop had not started going up hill yet. Turns out, it was 7 miles each way, and finding that out at 3 in the afternoon, while we hadn't eaten since breakfast, none of us were too happy for the hike back up. We have some wonderful pictures of the many waterfalls we passed by though, and at the end, we were all hungry and sore, and definitely devoured our lunch at 6pm after finally collapsing back on our camping chairs. Pre-rain, of course.

And one of our dogs ran away because one of my friends forgot to close her side of the tent, and at 4am, I had to go out looking for the dog, without no help from said friend, my mood was a bit ruined as well. Specially since earlier that day, while hiking, I had rescued a lost dog myself, carrying it around for 40 minutes, before the owners heard from other hikers that I had the dog and caught up to us.

Add that to getting carsick on the way down the mountain (twists and turns are a killer for me when I'm not the one driving), the camping trip was less than relaxing. It was the kind of trip that makes first timers hate camping. I, however, have had enough great experiences to know that camping is usually a blast! So definitely ready for a remake, props to my friends though for still trying to salvage the trip despite everyone's bad moods.

So, a week at the beach where my biggest worry will be "should I reapply more sunscreen now?" is EXACTLY the type of time off I've been looking for. For the rest of you? Enjoy your long weekend!

Now time to pack -- leaving at 5am, and not having packed anything by now, is probably not the smartest idea, but if there's one thing I know for sure, is that I am a great procrastinator...