Coming to you live, from–somewhere deep in Southeast Georgia.  No clue where.  The children keep asking; I think they find it worrisome that their parents will blithely check into a cheap motel without even knowing the name of the town.

We’re on our way to Port Canaveral, Florida–we’re going on a Disney cruise for the holidays.  We picked the children up from school this afternoon, and we’ve been headed south on I-95 ever since.  Except, of course, for the obligatory vacation-Walmart stop.  Long story there–somehow, it seems over the years that whenever we find ourselves in any town smaller than, say, New York, we wind up in desperate need of something we’ve forgotten, and Walmart is the only place within 50 miles that might possibly have a cheap, poorly made version of whatever the essential item is.  At home, I avoid the Walmart like the plague.  I HATE it; it’s disorganized, overstimulating, poorly staffed.  An overall dreadful experience.  But the standing family joke is that we’re not really on vacation until we’ve been to the local Walmart.  Tonight we went to one somewhere south of Savannah, but north of Brunswick.  We needed batteries, lip sunscreen, chewing gum (for the child who insisted that boredom requires constant intake of food), a small container of laundry detergent, and a new garment bag (the one I pulled out of the attic this morning smelled funky).  Lee went in, and was gone for half an hour.  I thought perhaps he had gotten lost and just given up.  No–he was just having a typical Walmart experience.  Oh well.  At least we’re on vacation now!

 Anyway, in the midst of the packing craziness, I missed riding on two of the most beautiful days we get in winter in NC.  I hated being stuck inside, but I had to just let go of it–I had no time.  As it is, I forgot several significant things–jewelry (I have no earrings for the next two weeks!), my mountain bike pedals (I’m planning to rent a bike on Antigua and ride for a few hours, and I brought the shoes, but forgot to take the pedals off the bike–you can visualize me smacking my forehead now), and my training plan.  Duh.  All the worrying about whether I’m packing the right clothes for which workout (constant movement is the only way to get through a cruise without gaining enough weight to sink the ship, in my experience), and I go and forget the instructions.  Dingbat.  Mr. Helpful is going to try and figure out how to download it for me, since we have internet here in the motel. I guess I’ll just ride that bike in sneakers.  And who really needs earrings, anyway, right?!

So we’ll board the ship around lunchtime tomorrow, and I’m sure Lee’s first agenda item onboard will be to sign up for unlimited access in the Internet cafe.  So I’ll be blogging at sea–now you can visualize me grinning widely!