As I’m headed to Portland in May—I wasn’t kidding when I said I’d sell body parts to go see Over the Rhine and Hem together!—I picked up a travel guide to Portland today. I fly out on Saturday the 6th and back home on Tuesday the 9th. Fun exchange with my boss about it yesterday:

Me: I’ll be out of the office on the 8th and 9th.
Boss: Oh? Going somewhere?
Me: Yep. Portland.
Boss: Oregon?
Me: Yep. Remember a couple weeks ago when I was trying to figure out when I could go see Over the Rhine during the [program] monthly?
Boss: Yeah. You were frustrated about the shows in Ohio being on Easter weekend.
Me: You got it. Never been to Portland, always wanted to go, and now I have a great excuse.

Two things:

1. Yes, Sean, we need to talk before I go.
2. Yes, Mom, I will come to Tennessee before I go off on this crazy trip. I’m coming either next weekend or the next, whichever doesn’t have choir singing at church. I know that we’re off one of the two, but I just don’t know which one is clear.

And yes, if you’re curious, this is replacing my longer planned trip in July. I had that trip half-planned, but I’m doing this instead. I’ll just shelve those plans until next year. Actually, I’ll probably shelve them until next April. As this year’s gone by, it’s made sense to me that the best time for me to take vacation is just after Easter: any earlier and I mess up Lent stuff at church and run into co-workers’ Spring Break trips with kids, and any later I run into summer vacations with kids. [And if you're saying, "Well, what about the fall and winter?"---you maroon, that's HOCKEY SEASON!]

Lastly, the greatest thing about all this is that, assuming I don’t take any time the rest of the year, I’ll have a good three weeks banked up by the time I’m ready to take vacation next year. I hit my five-year point at work for accruing vacation time in early September, so by the time I’m ready to do the trip I’d like to do, I’ll be able to make it a driving trip and not a flying one. Driving is what I want to do most of all…