We’re off to a little bit of a late start, and thankfully it is not all my fault. After a little bit of sleeping in and some last minute packing my ride has arrived, complete with luggage already strapped to its roof. This caravan ain’t messin’ around. On board: Jeff, Kristal, Michael, Scott and Natalie. No one is traveling light for our 3-day excursion.

A brief detour: Rolling Pin Bakery in Bladensburg. After many of Kristal’s pining for cake I’m happy to finally learn where this bakery is located and also to go inside the store. It’s small inside, with views of the actual bakery in the back, and the staff is friendly and helpful. We pick up a yellow sheet cake they have (half-sheet) and ask them to write “Eat Me” on it. They oblige with a little giggle and even give us two exclamation points. Back on the road.

The playlist starts out with old disco, new Kylie and bubblegum pop remixes, which I’m enjoying but soon enough the iPod controls are hijacked to country songs that I don’t know but everyone else seems to be singing along with. And that’s fine, it’s all about the journey.

Our black boat arrives just shortly after Chris (who traveled separately with Lagerfeld, the big black dog) and after claiming sleeping rooms_I’m in the constellation room with skylights_we retire to the back porch for catch-ups and cosmos. And a big ole piece of that cake. I can’t imagine finishing that entire cake this weekend, but worse things have happened.

Next stop: happy hour at Aqua and Blue Moon.

But then… We skip Blue Moon and instead opt for dinner at Casa DiLeo which has delicious pizzas and we ordered enough to have a couple of boxes for takehome, which I’m sure will disappear as the weekend progresses.