The Vacation is Burning! (Prologue)

I've been AWOL for awhile, I know. My Aunt Margaret and a few others expressed a desire for more blogs, so after a summer off, I'm back, with a longish tale about our summer vacation. I'm going to split it into sections, and roll it out over the next few days as it's kind of a doozy. So, today I give you: "The Vacation is Burning! (Prologue)."

As some of you may know, since we've been together, Ry and I have taken a yearly vacation to his family's cabin in the UP of Michigan. It's always a good time - quiet, serene - a place and time to let the rush and bustle of the city drift away and reconnect with nature and each other. We take Daisy and let her off the leash. We swim, play cards, listen to country music on the radio. Ryan fishes. We grill and read books. That's about it. On these trips, we also make time to see each other's families. Everyone lives in the Midwest, so we try and see as many people as we can over a two week period, which means we get to drive the circle tour around the Great Lakes region each year. There's only so much time, and there are always people we want to see but miss. It's a lot to fit into two weeks, but we give it our best shot.

This year, we planned our vacation as such: we would leave NYC on August 1st, picking up our friends' dog, Animae, in Brooklyn on the way out of the city and make it half way to IL that day. Our plan was to get to a hotel in time to watch "Rescue Me" that night. Then we'd push on to IL the next morning, see my friend/ex Eddie at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival, then get to my mom's late the night of the 2nd. We'd planned to stay with the parentals and see some family over the next 4 days, and then drive the morning of the 6th to MI to pick up our friend Shelly from the airport in Detroit. Then the three of us would drive to the cabin, arriving early that evening (Ryan's Birthday, actually), where we'd meet up with our friends Ben, Jay and Michael who were driving from Boston to spend the week at the cabin with us. We all were to spend a relaxing week at the cabin, with Ryan and I taking a day or two to visit with his sister, brother-in-law and nephew who were also up in the UP on vacation that week, then I'd hitch a ride home to NYC with the Boston boys on the 12th and be back at work on the 14th. Ryan would stay another week in MI with Shelly, and spend a few more days with his family, including his dad, and then drop Shelly off at the airport, and come home alone with Animae on the 18th. This way we'd get to see just about everybody. Easy Shmeasy, right? Well, let's just say pretty much NOTHING happened as we planned. I'm going to break this thing down into 4 parts: The Road to IL, Daisy has a Hernia, Run for Your Lives, Finally Some Relaxation! Hope you enjoy it!