Vacation... all I ever wanted...

O.k., sorry for the singing of bad 80s music. Be glad you can't hear me. Singing is not one of my strong suits.

One of my only regrets about M. starting to work so suddenly is that we haven't had the opportunity to go on our annual vacation. We were honestly too tightly strapped this summer to go and I was swamped at work and he was studying for the bar, and then we had the hurricane business which sort of put us out of commission. I was hoping that we'd be able to go this month, but I had no idea he'd be starting to work so soon.

So my question to each of you - if you only had a weekend (maybe a long weekend) to go somewhere, where would you go?

We're big on little trips - and in the last oh year and a half or so we've been to: Seattle (beautiful... just breathtaking in the spring), Phoenix & other parts of Arizona (I saw my first snowfall there), Vermont/New Hampshire/Maine (I'd move to Burlington if it wasn't so damn cold), and Montreal, and I had a quick trip to Chicago (I'd move there too but then again, it's too cold). He's travelled a great deal in the continental U.S. (much more so than I have), but neither of us have really been out of the States much.

M's brother is studying outside of Paris, and we're planning a trip to France in the Spring, but he won't really have vacation time until the new year. So - I thought we could have a few excursions between now and then. We're going to be in Kansas City for Thanksgiving, and Dallas for Christmas, both for much overdue visits to family, but I want some more exciting trips - for just us.

I'm trying to surprise him too, because his 41st birthday is in early Jan., and to be honest, he got screwed on his 40th (well...actually, no - he didn't....). I wasted a few hours today looking at different websites, trying to get ideas. As I'd like to be able to make it up to him, now that we can.

We love good beer/breweries, wine, photography, architecture, museums, etc. There are some amazing deals right now to London on Virgin or British Airways, but - is this really feasible for a weekend trip? Does anyone have any great ideas? Great places to be for just a weekend? Travel time isn't really important. We've been known to drive 2+ hours just for dinner (at Blue Heaven in Key West) when the mood strikes... and we're close to 3 fairly large airports, so finding flights isn't too bad.