Off We Go, Onto My Wild Mule Yonder

The Muley family is heading out early this morning for a week's vacation through Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri. Highlights of the trip will be visits to Eureka Springs and Hot Springs, Arkansas, and my immediate family's first visit to Branson, Missouri.

My parents invited us on this trip so they could spend quality time with their son, daughter-in-law and granddaughters. It will be the six of us, four adults and two kids, in a Honda van for seven days. I predict the outcome will be either the trip of a lifetime, or one of the bloodiest massacres in U.S. history.

My 45th birthday will be Monday, July 11, so we'll be celebrating that on the road. I'm used to it, though, since many of our family vacations as a kid were taken in July. I ended up celebrating a number of my birthdays in places such as Sanibel Island, Florida, and Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Even before we have departed, my dad has kept his streak alive by asking me last night the same question he has asked on my birthdays since I can remember:

12th birthday:

So, do you feel any older?

27th birthday:

So, do you feel any older?

33rd birthday:

So, do you feel any older?

45th birthday:

So, HOW old are you again?

I've already had the "jokes" from my parents about how I'll be eligible to join AARP in just five years. Yeah, I feel frisky as a colt. Actually, it doesn't bother me. Nothing's falling off me yet.

I won't have access to a computer while I'm on the road, so I'm trying something new. I'll be filing daily audio blog reports, and hopefully they'll have something worth listening to. If these get a good response, maybe I'll keep filing them every now and then in the future for a change of pace.

I'll be making my next written post on July 15 or so. I can't wait to get back and see what all of you have had to say in that time.

Finally, I made one bargain with my parents about this trip. They had to promise not to drag my family to see this show in Branson:


Am I being too harsh?