Spring Break--good and bad

Well, I've returned from Spring Break and then hunkered down through another week of school.  Spring Break was a mixture of hellish weather, loooong drives, and then a great few days at the end.

We drove to my parents house, which is 15 hours away. On the way there, we made the trip in two days.  We decided against flying for several reasons. 
I hate making flight arrangements
I hate paying for the flights
I hate hate hate packing--and packing is harder for flights
We wanted to bring the dog
It's nice to have a car (own that isn't rented)

The trip out was windy, but not too bad.  But the weather at my parents' house absolutely sucked. It was the coldest, dreariest weather I can remember for a March.  Snow, but not enough to sled on and too wet and heavy for good skiing.  Too cold for anything else. 

Plus, my son had a terrible stomach virus that he passed on to his dad and his grandma.  And oddly, his cousin also had a stomach virus.  So we couldn't get the kids together to play.  So we just hung out for three days, which was kind of relaxing and then pretty boring.

Finally, it was time for all of us to drive down for a big family 3-day Carnival cruise.  This was the worst point in the trip, as the weather had gotten so bad that we couldn't make it over the mountains!  More specifically, we got up to where snow chains were required. Spent 45-minutes figuring out how to put those on.  And by the time we were back on the highway, it was closed and we had to turn back!  Fortunately, there was another very out of the way route, which involved going the opposite direction and then down through the neighboring state, and back over.  So we made it in at 11pm (started at 9am).

Cruise was GREAT!  I was dubious, and it isn't something I'd ever want to do with just my S.O.  But with my aging parents plus my kids and their cousins, it was all a lot of fun.  And I ate a ton of good food.

Then we drove back the 15-hour trip in one day, which ended up taking 20 hours.  I arrived in time to get two hours of sleep before heading out to teach!

So now I have to get those 48 4-6page papers graded.  I put those off long enough.