Vacation for Two

Brian's vacation starts today and he couldn't be more excited. Mine starts...after Tuesday. Tuesday is Staff Development Day, hereafter referred to as Hellish Nightmare Day. Staff Development Day at JCC occurs twice a year, during Spring and Fall Breaks and exists solely to make me a crazy person. Actually, its purpose is to provide professional development to the 120+ staff members at the College, but really, when you're in charge of the entire day, it just serves as a source of extreme tension and exhaustion.

This fall's theme is - wait for it - "Learning to Lead." How exciting! How utterly breathtaking! How...boring. Our committee has only put on one of these before, and already we're fresh out of good ideas. At this point, there's a lot left to do but most of it is of the last-minute sort. That means no sleep for me, and this eerie knot in the pit of my stomach that screams "The day will fail!" "You will forget something!" "It might be a disaster!" But I'm only listening to the knot a little bit, because the day after Hellish Nightmare Day is our mountain vacation!! Woo hoo!!

My MIL is sending us to High Hampton in Cashiers, NC for a few days to rejuve after a few months of work and school and nothing else. We've never been to High Hampton before, but apparently it's posh in that elegant-but-rustically-simple way. The wagon leaves at 5am to arrive at the Biltmore Estate at 9:30 for our tour. I've been probably 10 times by now, but BB's never gone, so we're spending almost the entire day there. Then it's off to Cashiers, where we'll stay in a little cabin-type building off from the main lodge. One of the days we're taking a day trip to Hendersonville, my home for 8 years through high school and college. It's another place BB's never seen, so we're doing it up right: riding through the old neighborhood, seeing our house, checking out the high school, our church, downtown...you name it, we're riding to see it. Should I point out my own "landmarks" while we're there? The Normans' house, Hannah Flanagan's, Jill's, the Claddagh, the lake, the hill, the CC?

Last year we spent Spring Break at my aunt's mountain house at Grandfather, so we're especially excited to return to the mountains after a year. Fall on the Blue Ridge Parkway? Perfect. Even if the leaves haven't turned, it's still oddly comforting to be returning to what I feel like is home. I love that place. I did right when we got there, and I love it still. I loved my friends there, I loved the land, I loved who I was then and I miss it. It will be hard to explain what my life was like there to someone who didn't know me then. But I'll try.

I'll post some pictures when we get back. I can't wait to be there, and though I'm sure I'll be glad to come home, I dread leaving behind, again, the girl I was in the mountains.