Vacation, Car Lag and Eye Opening Experiences

I've been off line for a bit while preparing for vacation, then heading out on vacation, now trying to recover from vacation. We left Friday, May 23rd and returned Sunday, June 1 and crammed a lot into 9 days. Instead of sunning ourselves at Myrtle Beach, SC (which we were invited to do) we decided to visit family and friends whom we haven't seen in quite some time.
Our vehicle was FULLY loaded with bags of clothes to give Tara's daughter, our luggage, cooler (long drive), laptops, all our Jewelry stuff (two nifty toolbox totes with wheels), pillows, air mattress, air mattress bed frame and our canopy and peg boards for festivals. We had asked our one friend to assist us with how to display our wares so we had to take that up with us.
On the plus side, we drive a 2008 Ford Escape and got 27-28 mpg on the whole trip. I'm fairly impressed with that, especially considering the load.
Our first stop was Tara's best friends who live in the Cincinnati area. For 4 years now we have always opened the summer with them. Took us 9 hours to reach their house and as we unloaded our suitcase and cooler Tara asked, "where's the brown leather duffel bag?" I said, "I thought you put it in the car." Turns out we left it on the bed with all of our other shoes, personal jewelry and toiletries...off to WalMart we go to pick up what we need. the 2.5 days with our friends was okay but the whole time there seemed to be tension. Tara finally confronted them and discovered: a. they are having some personal issues b. they only consider us friends when we've always thought of them as pretty close to family c. they weren't really up for a visit and d. they didn't want to "ruin" our trip so they didn't tell us. Oh and as a bonus, perhaps we shouldn't come next year...
They could have saved us the drive and told us all this before we got there. Quite frankly, we could have spent more time with our families and skipped Cincinnati had we known. That was a bitter pill to swallow and when Tara found out they only considered her a "good friend" it was crushing to her. We left there early and went on to my parents in Pittsburgh. Cincinnati was an eye opening experience.
Pittsburgh was actually quite enjoyable. My Dad was really sick last year and it was really nice to see him healthy and doing well. Actually, both of my parents looked great. We had a good time and genuinely got to relax.
Our last leg was up to our old stomping ground in Erie, PA to visit Tara's daughter and all of our friends and family there. It was fabulous. I also stopped in to my old work site (I'm still with the same company just in NC now) and caught up with everyone there. We cooked out, hung out, played cards, went to bed too late each night and got up too early and it all seemed to go too fast.
Sunday we held out as long as we could before driving back to NC. Only took 10 hours and we backroaded quite a bit. Saw some beautiful scenery in the mountains of Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia. Got in late, unloaded Monday morning and back to work I went on Monday afternoon. Today is the first day I'm starting to feel human. I didn't think you could get car lag but apparently you can.
Oh, if you were wondering, we had a good friend take care of our feline children while we were gone. They had lots of love and attention though they did actually miss us. For three mornings now I've woken up with 3 cats glued to me.
Now the rest of the summer we will be going to various festivals to sell jewelry and t-shirts but we plan to find a weekend and go somewhere just for us. you know, an actual vacation with no watches, work etc.