on the road again

Hello from beautiful Ocracoke Island, North Carolina! Mike and I have been planning and scheming for a while to plan this vacation, and we're finally here. Well, it probably doesn't seem so much like "finally" to the boys, since we didn't tell them we were going on vacation at all. We dropped them all off at school/daycare on Friday, then rushed back home so I could work a half-day and Mike could take the dog to the kennel, pack everything (well, everything I hadn't already stealth packed), and load up the van. Just before noon, we picked Henry up from daycare, then signed Liam and Max out of school. We told them we were going on vacation, told them where we were going, and they reacted with ... blank looks. Really. It was like they just couldn't process what was going on. Five minutes later, on the way out of town, I asked Henry if he knew what was happening, and he said no. I told him we were going on vacation, and at last got a suitable response: "VACATION? THAT'S AWESOME! BUT WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST SAY SO???" That kid.

Anyway, it's been a long two days of driving. The first night we got to our hotel in Lewisburg, West Virginia, right before midnight. And yesterday we thought we would get to Ocracoke before dinner, but it was pushing 8 pm by the time we crossed Virginia and North Carolina, hit the ocean, drove all the way down the Outer Banks, hopped a ferry from Hatteras to Ocracoke, then drove down the length of the island and found our cottage. Happily for us, the cottage owners left the keys for us since we got here after hours. We took a short walk, got some dinner, unloaded the van, and everyone crashed out. This morning Henry and I ventured out to Ocracoke Coffee Company, which was packed but funky and friendly. And now we're off to unload our bikes and take a ride and check things out.

As part of an ongoing attempt to entertain the boys on our misguidedly long car trips, this time I busted out a camera and handed it over to them. The results were mixed: a lot of shots that highlighted dirty windows with blurry scenery behind, but also some really neat things that caught their eyes. Check it out.