What were we thinking?

So it’s begun to set in that shortly we’ll be leaving on our epic, month-long “vacation of a lifetime.” No, that’s not what we’re calling it or expecting from it, but I think those words do characterize it fairly. We both know that we are lucky to be doing it at all, since this was all supposed to go down last year… but you know what they say about best laid plans.  There’s still time.

So, we’ve begun to realize that we tend to make things more difficult than they need to be.  Sure, coordinating a month away from home when you have three dogs seems like it should be sufficient hassle and stress for anyone. No, but it wasn’t sufficient for Ben and Liz. We just had to squeeze in a quick-hit canoe trip down the Wisconsin River with our friends Troy and Marci (and their cool twins Hannah and Tate). What could go wrong?

We do have a history of these sorts of miscalculations.  It was six years ago this summer that we went on a three day bicycle tour of southwestern Wisconsin on the weekend before our wedding. At the time we didn’t even think about it, nor did we understand the hints that family members and friends had been dropping.  “Yeah, so what if Liz crashes on a 45mph descent after tasting beer in New Glarus?  That could happen to anyone!”  So my question is, have we been ignoring the hints this time as well?

So off we went today on our shopping trip to prepare for not one, but two separate but different vacations. Just keeping them mentally separate was a challenge.  “Are you buying those pants for  Europe or the river?” Both, it turned out. It was easy to know that any food being purchased was for the canoe trip.  They have food in Europe that we plan to eat. 

Overall, I think we’ve got things under control. Everything is going to work out perfectly. Nothing will go wrong. It will be epic.