Maine's coming, did you bring your coat?

And on the topic of Maine, only three more days of work and then we head out! This week is packed with work for me, but I'm hoping that encourages it to go faster. Yesterday I came in for half a day to get the kiln room taken care of (which was good because even so I have much to catch up on today... yes I know I'm writing a blog post instead; even I need to take breaks sometimes). Today and tomorrow are both 9-10 hour days. And Thursday's going to be a 12 1/2 - 13 hour day which I'll be powering through (full day of work, corporate team building event, Ladies' Night, and a private party for Pauline's friends). All in all, it'll be tough, but at least with our trip moved up a day, I'll have that to look forward to to get me through. I may even treat myself to a bit of sushi (which always helps me get through the tough days).

Tonight and tomorrow night are also my packing nights. By the time I go to sleep Wednesday night, everything but my pillow (and snacks) will be ready to go to Maine. That way on Thursday night when I crawl into the apartment after my long day, I can shower and get six or so hours of sleep before we're off to Maine (if I'm super motivated and really get to bed early enough, there's a chance I'll get up at 5:00 to workout before we leave... we'll see). So far the plan is to get up at 6:00, dressed, and out the door at 6:30.

The drive is somewhere around 7 hours to get to Freeport (where we're staying on Friday night). We tend to stop (a lot) on our trips, thus the early leave time. Hopefully we'll get into Freeport early evening and get to see some of the city. We're already planning on a midnight trip to the L. L. Bean flagship store. (Did you know the Freeport L. L. Bean Flagship Store is open 24 hours?) At some point I will try a McLobster and Moxie (hopefully at the same time). Oh yes, I intend to get the full Maine experience.

There's no cell reception in the house we're staying in. This is something that thrills Genevieve and Michael but is a little less than thrilling for me. I am far too used to being connected to pretty much everyone I know and everywhere/thing I need via my phone, so not being able to get every-thirty-second updates on what's happening in facebook land and such will be an adjustment. But one I'm sure I'll quite enjoy. I will have internet access so I'll be posting (I hope) daily updates on our trip here and responding to emails when I can. (Oh, and, of course, daily checking the Woot! Shirt of the day; I do not apologize for a second for ruining your life with that link. I will pleasantly _not_ be available for _any_ work-related anything. And _that_ is a very pleasing thought.

All in all, I'm super excited about this trip. I've never been on a vacation like this. As a kid, we did lots of day trips, but never a full out vacation. And money was always tight so we almost always avoided staying over anywhere if we could. That's not to say my parents didn't do what they could; they did. And we were never needing and rarely wanting for anything. It's just a particular thing we never did.

As an adult, I've done plenty of weekend trips and a couple of extended road trips. We did take a week to go to Memphis when Genevieve's sister lived there, but half of that was driving and finding the cheapest hotels we could; über fun, don't get me wrong, but not the same kind of "vacation" - different kind of fun. Anyway, this is my first real vacation like this (and I couldn't be more grateful to Michael's mom for having us). We've known about it for the better part of the last year and having it so close is almost difficult to grasp. It's always just been this awesome thing that's far away and we have to look forward to. To actually be gearing up to go is pretty extraordinary.