Spring Break - Family Style

So this spring break post is probably about a month too late. Had we started the blog earlier, I probably would've started with something like:


"It's that time of year again -time for college students everywhere to load up the Grand Cherokee and head to blah blah blah sleeping in the bathtub blah blah blah..."


But as I said, I'm a little late with my spring break post. The reason I'm just getting to it now is because Kate and I are going on our semi-adult spring break. It's definitely not Panama City with the fraternity brothers, but it's not Orlando with the kids and the minivan and the juice boxes either. We're doing a four day road trip through the Southeastern United States - hitting Asheville, Charlotte, and Nashville on successive nights. For those of you wondering, Gilbert is staying with (and being spoiled by) his grandparents.


So back to our mini spring break. There are a few reasons why I know this is just 'spring break' as opposed to Spring Break!!! First, we have to ask permission to go. In college, you just leave when class is over with. Everyone leaves. But now we have to ration our vacation days over the course of a year. Also, I think that one of the best parts of vacation is that every day has a potential highlight - basically something that you're looking forward to. My first boss always had us give our highs and lows for each workday. At work, the low for the day tends to stick with you more than the high. On vacation, the low is typically overshadowed by the day's high. Durring a college Spring Break! these potential highlights would usually involve bars named using some kind of (Adjective or Animal Species + Human Name) naming convention. Something like Sharky Bobs or Crazy Eddies. It's a little different for our sort of grown up spring break. Here are our potential highlights:


Kate's Pre-Trip Highlight: Finding the perfect sized bag of cheddar-flavored Chex Mix. Large enough for a 7+ hour drive, but not so big that you'll feel guilty eating the entire bag.


Nate's Pre-Trip Highlight: Naming my own prices for hotel rooms on Priceline. After a successful bid, I would do the William Shatner "Priceline Negotiator" karate chop. As mentioned in previous posts, I'm a huge dork.


Kate's Day 1 Potential Highlight: Not having to wear her pager. Yes, you read that correctly. My wife has to wear a pager for work. All the time. Yes it's 2008. Yes, they still make pagers. And yes, they still look ridiculous. For those of you not familiar with this technology, it's like a phone with caller ID, except the phone part is broken. And it doesn't have a camera or MP3 player.


Nate's Day 1 Potential Highlight: Mastery of my new Garmin. Oh, who am I kidding. It's really the potential detour to the Maker's Mark Distillery (my Graceland).


Kate's Day 2 Potential Highlight: A hotel room with a fluffy comforter. Or as she puts it "I hope they don't have the dirty comforters like the ones on 20/20 with the blacklights." The style of the comforter will determine whether I was successful with my Priceline Negotiator skills.


Nate's Day 2 Potential Highlight: Running then Pancakes. Oh, and not checking my email before noon.


Shared Day 3 Potential Highlight: Beer and live music in Nashville. Probably peaking early and being in bed by 10:00.


Kate's Day 4 Potential Highlight: Being one day closer to seeing her dog. Or being home in time to watch Oprah - it's just not the same when it'd TiVo'd.


Nate's Day 4 Potential Highlight: Stopping at the outlet mall to buy new running shoes because the Nike Outlet Store is the only place I can find shoes for my freakish feet.


So that's a glimpse into the Romance Family Spring Break 2008. We'll be back in a few days with plenty of new blog material. Oh, and if you have any other suggestions for what my daily highlights should be in Asheville, Nashville, or Charlotte, let me know. I'll try not to use up my ticket quota this early in the year.