The lost three day holday

We had planned a get away over the Labor Day weekend. Now we aren't sure if we will be on the road. Generally, Mary and I travel towards the coast this time of year. Many of the tourists are gone and North Carolina beaches are nearly deserted. The ocean is quite nice and typically stays warm into the first few weeks of October.

We have been going to the Blue Ridge by the third or fourth week of October. The first year we went to Asheville it was October 20. We left Raleigh and 80° temperatures on a Friday afternoon. When we arrived in Asheville it was close to 55° and dropping. In fact, that night was the season's first snowfall. Temperatures were in he mid-20s that night. That was pre-Coachmen and pre Dodge diesel. We still had the Chevrolet 5.7 gasser and the 7K pound Holiday Rambler tt. Knowing the Chevrolet was on its last hoorah, we opted to tent it...and were quite COLD that night.

But this weekend just feels like a home bound weekend. May be it was Hurricane Irene. Fortunately Irene didn't weild monumental force, as far as hurrican potential goes, but it did enough damage (last count there were close to10 dead) that it seems to have deflated the urge to get out for the last adventure of summer.

IT could also be Mary and I need the down time to just be still. Mary is completing her on-lone classes, I am getting the Dodge ready for new modifications, and there is also the new job opportunity that was given to Mary this week. If there were such a thing as the perfect end run play, that news would be a metaphoric example of how it would play out in real life. In a way, I think we are just beginning to appreciate our options.

It does look like the weather will be great this weekend--an almost perfect North Carolinian holiday. The Coachmen is setting right outside. We just might have to unroll the awning, set out the new pink flamingo patio lights and load up the grill with some briquettes. Three years ago, Mary and I were in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina on a cold Saturday afternoon in March sitting in Awful Arthur's Seafood. Mary ordered her first rock fish sandwich and a beer, I had the peel-and-eat pound of shrimp and a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Led Zeppelin was playing on the radio. I looked over at Mary, she was smiling, I was grinning ear to ear and I said these words---

"It don't get any better than this!"

I think that is what this weekend will feel like--what could be any better?