On the road, again

For the second time in as many months, I am heading off tomorrow with my two kids, and without my husband, to visit my friend's new vacation home, here. A lovely place for a family vacation, though is it really a family vacation when one of the parents abstains, and it's only for four days, two of which will mostly be spent driving through the Mojave?

The H is staying home to work, without the pleasant and not so pleasant distractions the other three of us provide. He's trying to finish a script before Labor Day, and before our collective heads explode from the stress of the script being unfinished. Meanwhile, despite a long haul to get there, I get to hang out with my kids, one of my closest friends and her kids, who my kids adore....etc. etc. It's all good. I should be completely psyched. But...sometimes I wish I was the one staying home alone, not the one fighting for five hours in the car about why there are no more Goldfish, why I will not stop at McDonald's, why I will not listen to Music Together Bongos one more time...I'd like to think that if I were left home alone, I'd exercise every day, write 30 pages of...something I'm writing, organize our photo albums, paint the entry hall....etc. I wouldn't. I'd do some (small number) of those things and mope around the house and read magazines and eat ice cream, and go to movies by myself. (Ok, that last part sounds beyond awesome.)