How I Spent My Belated Honeymoon-The Trip Down

Now we are headed down to New Jersey. It is late, we had no idea where we were going to stay and I had not even changed out of my dress and heels! This was not boding well for a good night. I was glad that the dress was cotton and she at least left my traveling shoes out. She called in a few favors and we pulled into her husband’s oldest son’s house at three thirty in the morning. I would refer to him as my step-brother but he is nearly old enough to by my father and I only met him once, eleven years ago.

The day of the reunion barbecue has arrived. My best friend from high school has put a lot of effort into organizing this and other friends of mine have rearranged their schedules in order to be there on the one day I was going to be there. To say that I felt loved that day would be an understatement. After everything that we had gone through to get there, my mother decided that she wanted to go to the flea market. No big deal, we were just going to head to my friend’s house, get showered and cleaned up, pick her back up, let her drop us off, and let her do her thing visiting her friends. Nope, before we even got to my friend’s house, my mother decided that there were things that my husband needed to see and called him back to the flea market. Not only did I not get my shower, they did not come back to pick us up until the party had already gotten underway. I was more than a little bit upset about being late. It did not help matters that I was forced to wear my travel shoes with my dress the entire time.

The rest of the day went beautifully, we had a grand time, and my anger had long subsided. While I thought we were going to spend the night there, I found out that I was wrong. Again. We said our good-byes, got back on the road and stopped an hour outside of, where else, Washington D.C. . The next morning we crossed our fingers and attempted the zoo again. The rain we encountered on the way in was discouraging but we went anyway. It turned out that it was a good move as the rain ceased for the duration of our stay there. Before doing anything else, we took the kids to see the White House.  They were super excited and it was something we knew they would certainly remember! 

  Without being able to meet up with another good friend of mine who lived and worked in the general area, we took off again only to be told, by my mother, that we were not going to be driving straight through as we had planned. I lost count which plan this was that got scratched. Instead we stayed at the first hotel we went to and got home a day later than anticipated. Fortunately he still had his day job when we got back and our business was still in one piece. Truth be told, I am more stressed now that we are back than I was before we left. The pros of taking my mother on what started out as our honeymoon did not outweigh the cons and I was happy to drop her back off at home. All I can say is that I have learned a very valuable lesson-never plan and never take my mother on vacation-ever again.