Thursday October 10, 2019 // Evening Nap
Ouch! What was that? I slapped my neck and see a smashed mosquito. Ugh, that’s going to itch for two days, isn’t it?
I step inside the house and unhook my dog from her leash. The steamy summer evening walks at sunset have turned into crisp autumn walks in the dark. Our summer trip to Asheville, North Carolina feels like a fading memory. Yeah, I never got around to finishing that blog post on it did I?
I head upstairs. Warm up my kid’s bottle and start the nighttime routine. The days are blurring together. Wake up, work, pick up kid from daycare, hang out with kid until he needs to nap, eat dinner with wife, wash dishes, do nighttime routine, go to sleep, repeat. Each day is wonderful. Each day I see my child grow and laugh and learn. Work treats me well. The Nats are winning baseball games. All is right. Until the itch sets in…
That was no mosquito that bit me. It was the Travel Bug. It’s two-inch fangs were dripping venom when it sank its teeth into my flesh.
I spent the next few days trying to figure out if we could use any United points, calculating how much time off we have, and determining if we can realistically and financially responsibly go on another trip this year.
What I didn’t know about the travel bug is that the illness it brings must be airborne. Because before I could even bring up another trip with my wife she asked me if I thought we could do a long weekend at the beach. Heck yeah! The beach wasn’t even on my mind but it makes perfect sense. It’s drivable, we’ll have to take minimal time off of work, and since it’s the offseason most things should be cheaper.
We absolutely love Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. In fact, in a perfect world we’ll eventually get a beach house there in ~20 years. We do a trip there each year for anywhere from 3-7 days at a bed and breakfast. Thus far in 2019 a trip to Rehoboth just wasn’t in the cards for us. That’s about to change though.
Since we’ll have a ~4-month-old at the time of our trip, we can’t stay at our usual B&B. My wife fired up the ol’ Airbnb app and started searching for the right place for us. And she found one! Justtt not in Rehoboth. Instead, we’ll be staying at the beach right next door — Dewey Beach, Delaware.
We’ve never stayed in Dewey. However the past few times we’ve gone to Rehoboth we’ve ventured over to Dewey for a meal and to hit up Dewey Beer Co. Dewey Beer Co. is one of my favorite breweries. Maybe it’s just because the only time I have their beer is when I’m on vacation. Regardless, their beer is hands down delicious and I’m pumped to be staying a few blocks away.
I know I haven’t gotten around to writing the full Asheville trip recap. Maybe I never will. But Asheville taught us that traveling with a kid / baby / newborn is possible. It won’t be the same vacation experience you’d get traveling without a little one. You have to adjust to their needs first. But you still get to travel. You still get to have those memories. And you get to introduce your child to the joys of travel. I don’t see any downsides here.
The Travel Bug got me again. I can’t fight it’s poison. But I’m not looking for an antidote.
– Josh // Infected and Contagious
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