​A long day followed by an even longer week and we’re staying at a hotel tonight.

It would seem plausible by now that I should have awesome organizing and packing up skills. But this morning those skills seemed to have disappeared.

I had hoped to get an early morning start heading up the coast to Camp Lejeune, but we didn’t make it out of Ft. Fisher until almost 2 o’clock. I was trying to finish up last minute laundry and make sure the tent was fairly dry from the rain the day before and deal with cranky kids who were so tired of the heat all they wanted was to sit in the air conditioned tent and watch movies. Needless to say, I struggled to get motivated today.

But, we finally made it out of there and up to Camp Lejeune where we got a hotel for the night. We almost didn’t get one when the lady at the check-in desk refused to accept my passport as a form of valid ID. I’m sorry, I don’t have a driver’s license because someone stole it along with my entire wallet. Not to mention, acquiring a passport requires a heck of a lot more paperwork than a driver’s license does. Finally after a few tense moments of “discussion” she agreed to accept the passport.

The hotel was an extended stay type, so we had a kitchen in our room. No dishes though because covid, so we had to drag ours upstairs from the car. Once we got everyone and everything up to the room I made some burgers and tater tots while the kids watched some show about New Hampshire park rangers. It turned out not to be the wisest choice as one of the episodes turned into a recovery mission for a canoer gone overboard. Not sure I’ll ever be able to get the kids in a canoe again now, but I doubt they’ll balk so much at wearing their life vests.

Now time to get some sleep, since I’m certain tomorrow is going to be a long day as we muddle through the process to get me a new ID.