Off to Magic-land, for a Week of Family and no Connections

I’ve been stalling because I’ve got a five-and-a-half hour drive ahead of me. I’ll be taking a course through New York State and then …well I am sworn to secrecy about my destination, so I will not provide those details.  I am meeting the entire family down there, it’s a family reunion at a special place we all discovered last year.

But when I waxed so enthusiastic about the place, a few long time summer visitors told me not to wreck it.  Don’t write a damn blog about Magic-land, they said, we don’t want more people to come here and bring their noise, trash and SUVs.  We like it just the way it is.

And the way it is means no internet at the house, no cellphone reception and a lot of fun times with family.  I am packing monstrous amounts of food, since a tradition is that each night of the week someone different takes over the cooking.  When Mary comes later in the week, our night will be Wednesday.  We are keeping it easy this year with pasta night.  Three or four different pasta dishes and a big old salad.

But last year’s festivities included a rousing game of capture the flag, evening games of charades, water balloon toss, egg run sack races, we did a lot of those things you used to do before we all began spending so much time looking at our phones. I will walk every morning to the beach, spend time there snoozing and talking, and I hope to decompress the whole week and not even think about what email I’m not reading or which calls I am not returning.

It’s almost the Fourth of July. Time for a road trip to Magic-land, as I’ll call our mountaintop retreat with a wonderful lake.