Summer daze is coming

Though the winter deluge has not yet ceased (to my dismay) it is nearly the dreaded time to plan the summer vacation.

It’s not the vacation that’s dreaded, of course; it’s the planning. The adventure of when, where, why and how much always falls in my lap because my husband shares his son’s ADD and I’m a multi-tasker.

So. Let’s plan a vacation interesting enough for the adults, not overwhelming to Little Miss as she recovers from her sensory disorders, not full of trivia that Captain Oblivious will drown us with over the next six months, and still punchy enough that Ditto Boy (whose ADD drives him to copy faithfully all his brother’s skills) will be able to follow along. Huh.

We are blessed to some extent that the group are fabulous car travelers. The autism actually helped for a long time, because they could be sitting right next to each other and never notice. A gift! Of course, as they’ve gotten better, they’ve started the “Moooom, he’s touching me!” “Moooooom, he took my book.” You know how it goes. They tell me this is progress. I hope it is.

So. Hmm. Traveling. Then, I find this. Now we’re talking.

I’ve always liked the occasional garage sale, in recent years much more selective about attending them because I’ve got plenty of junk in my OWN house, thank you. But my husband is addicted. If we’re driving down the highway and there’s a garage sale or swapmeet on the side of the road he stares longingly, and if I’m driving and we pass it, I swear he makes that whiny noise a sad dog makes. If he’s driving…well, let’s just say the junk value of our house doubles. UNLESS he drives by slowly, and then gives me that look like, “See there, I drove by! I’m not a garage-aholic. I can stop ANY time!” just before he stops at the next one.

But this?? 630 MILES of garage sale in a row? With motel recommendations so you can stay LONGER? When I showed him, he drooled on his keyboard and shorted out the thing.

So I’ve got a friend in Louisville (pronounced Lou-a-ville, my friends) and I’m overdue for a visit with her. We could leave here and be there in seven hours or so, then pick up the trail and head south. Only 490 miles of yard sale. Darn. I hope we don’t miss something important. Then head on south to the end, take a left and drop off the kids at their grandmother’s in South Carolina for their summer visit. Hmm. This might work.

Little Miss is getting into the science of getting. She could find all sorts of wonderful (cheap) things. Ditto Boy and his dad can stop at multiple places for short amounts of time, perfect for their attention spans. Captain Oblivious will likely stock up on books and bury himself in a corner of the back seat with them. Perfect.

I’ll get my husband to install a tray in the front seat for my laptop so I can pen the Great American Murder Mystery while we’re on the road, something about someone driving along 630 miles of yard sale and leaving murder weapons among the junk to vanish into some hot little hands. Yeah, that’s it… (Wait! That’s not a bad idea! Where’s my laptop!)

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Meantime, I am invited this week to be part of the Just Write Blog Carnival , so writers stop by, and see what else you can find. Then I will leave you with this, which was really cute and demonstrates that some people have much more time than I do.