I see I haven’t posted a journal entry since Monday. Quick week. Ok, where did I leave off? Ah, back in Galena. Ok, let me catch up.

The trip really went well. The kids had fun and for once we weren’t traveling to see M’s relatives. On Tuesday T and S woke near six. I was up already so the three of us hit the breakfast room in the hotel while M and N slept a little later. After breakfast we hit the pool with a vengeance. You want the pool to yourself in a hotel? Show up at 6:45AM. I went down the waterslide with the boys and hung out on the lounge chairs, reading the paper, until near 9:00AM. We got ready and hit the road for the fifteen minute drive to Dubuque. The boys crossed the Mississippi for the first time. Dubuque looks like a toy city that’s been left out in the rain for a long time. We found the River Aquarium/Museum and entered just as the doors opened. The set up is pretty cool and bigger than I expected. We walked through all the exhibits/tanks (fucking alligators), watched a twenty minute movie about the river, and walked through a modern riverboat. I wasn’t bored, not much, anyway, and we stayed for a solid couple of hours. After we left we considered doing lunch in Dubuque but headed back to Galena. Since our options were few and the kids were getting cranky we hit Culvers and ate in the suite. After that we hit the pool again until dinner. The boys voted for pizza but the pizza place we chose was really a bar so M ordered the pizza and we hung out in a park along the river and played football and Frisbee while we waited. We had a blast in the park. Afterwards we inhaled some pizza in the room, swam a bit more, and fell asleep. I didn’t sleep well either night, unfortunately, but everyone else seemed fine. On the way home I snagged a speeding ticket, my second in ten months, in goddamn motherfucking Monroe, Wisconsin. I hate you, Monroe, Wisconsin. Fuck your city. We took the backroads. Besides the ticket and passing through the depressing city of Beloit I was glad to be off the highway. A couple bullets on the trip:

The suite was cool but airless in the front room. I couldn’t figure out how to work the fan for the life of me. I pushed that “cooler” button 100 times.

My kids can trash a hotel room with the skill and tenacity of a metal band on Jagermeister.

Galena is cool, I agree with you, James, but I can imagine how crowded the city must be in the summer. We were there on a March Tuesday and struggled mildly with parking. I can’t imagine a summer weekend.

The kids were excellent. They really played with each other well.

Ok, after we arrived home I pretty much collapsed into bed and woke ten hours later. Our U spring break extended through Tuesday, and I took off Wednesday, so Thursday morning was my grand re-entry into the profession. Do you want to hear something cool and somewhat scary? I wasn’t looking forward to returning. I think that’s because I actually felt as if I left on a real break. More on that, as it’s a very important topic, after I let the ideas bounce around my head. Thursday morning’s class was sleepy but workmanlike. I caught up on email, etc. Thursday afternoon. There really wasn’t much to do as I’ve tried to stay out of the work loop and not create my own work. Today was a little worse. I so didn’t feel like working. At least I managed a half hour on the elliptical before I left or I would have bounced off the walls. I guess I wasn’t entirely useless but I wasn’t particularly productive, either. I have a few small catch-up responsibilities left for this weekend or Monday. Today I took in two long meetings and ran into a few fires later in the day. I’ll survive.

Ok, I’m feeling caught up. More this weekend.