Ode to Weekend Getaways

Over the past few years D and I cultivated a love for the Weekend Getaway.  Of course, we enjoy longer vacations as well, but it's nearly impossible for us to coordinate matching periods of leave from work for more than a few days a time.  Earlier in our careers it was a little easier, but these days we've become the grownups and don't care to be gone too long.  Hence, the well-suited long weekend.

We can usually eke out a day on the front or back end of a weekend, making a nice 3- or 4- day trip.  It's the perfect amount of time for a little sightseeing, and due to the quick turnaround it's fun to prioritize our weekend itinerary.
 
Sometimes we've added in racing events, as in Austin this past April when we took a three-day weekend for a friend's wedding and the Statesman Cap 10K:

Sweaty and freezing back in the hotel...but what a great finish line view!

Or, the Salt Lake City Marathon a few years back...when we visited family friends and enjoyed the race, too.
 
We've even done weekends in Hawaii when D was stationed in Korea, ski weekends in Taos, and lots of Denver trips, hiking in Nederland, a cosmopolitan foray in DC, concerts in Seattle, touring in Atlanta, beach trip in Fort Lauderdale, deep sea fishing in Corpus Christi.  Sometimes I think I could write for those airline magazines..."3 Magical Days in Clarksville, Tennessee!" Yup, we've been there too, for the Clarksville Rotary Annual Metric.
 
The weekend away requires careful and flexible planning.  Dan usually picks a place to run or exercise.  It's my job to pick out a restaurant or two that I'd like to try (Nando's in DC most recently - after I'd read some blogs about it!), then we take turns selecting a few sights to see - museums, concerts, botanic gardens and the like. 
 
Long gone are the days of suffocating the weekend with nonstop activity and minute-by-minute scripting.  We go for the dim sum version and aim to do the unique activities we otherwise can't, when at home.  It's probably not the best value, but we try to use our hotel points and airline miles for these quick trips.  It suits me well as we are both homebodies - after a few days away we start to miss Nugget (our main source of discussion/my main source of worry when we're out of town) and pine for our tiny home, with all our things crammed in it.  It's just that the novelty of a hotel or AirBnB wears thin in a few days no matter how much fun we're having.

So maybe not every vacation from work has to be monumental - the quickturn, not too far from home, is a nice break from quotidian routine.  Just long enough to enjoy a new place, without missing Nug too much or breaking the bank!

Next up, Montreal?  Or some where in New England?  It's fall and maybe time to leaf-peep!  I also hope to recover in a few weeks, and maybe prepare for fall racing...no rushing it this time, though - learning has occurred :)