Glutton for punishment?

The lady (and my mom) have been hounding me for a while to take everyone up to Boston for a summer vacation.  I'm not usually one for vacations as such - I have a hard time relaxing.  I have been on 2 real vacations since leaving college 18 years ago.  So, with the Boston trip, I have been keeping it in mind, but it wasn't until earlier this week that the brevity of summer became apparent.  I asked the lady when the boys were due to go back to school.  The answer:  August 12!  I then had her run down the schedule and it looks like next week is about the only time we can make this trip.  Of course, flights are crazy expensive, so I came up with the idea of renting a minivan and driving up.  I'm kind of looking forward to it, as I've found that since quitting smoking, driving is a lot more pleasurable/tolerable.  Also, I get to take my dog with me, so that's cool.  I've planned out a good amount of things to do while we're up there, and it does look like this will be an active vacation with a lot of walking throughout Boston and the Cape.  Of course, this morning, I woke up to a stiff back, and just driving to work was not fun, so who knows how 17-19 hours in a car will work out. 

The bad back will have to get better soon as tonight, I'm scheduled to go visit friends in Alabama for the weekend.  I plan on bringing my smoker and cooking up a nice turkey.  The lady will be brining that today, and I just need to figure out what kind of wood I want to use.  I'm currently thinking of going with cherry wood, and maybe finishing it off with a bit of hickory.  Of course, we're scheduled to have rain all weekend, so I'm trying to decide what games to bring.  My friends enjoyed Castle Panic last time, so I'll bring that, Pandemic, Cards Against Humanity and maybe King of Tokyo to round it out.  Dixit may be another good one.