Vacations are work. A lot of work. They are like marriage in that way. Expectations for both are extraordinary. There is much planning involved. The planning and expectations create a certain amount of tension. Frequently, someone gets sick. Relatives arrive, invited and otherwise, often with their children.

Everyone copes with this tension in different ways. You cope by speeding down the highway and listening to Classic Vinyl on satellite radio. Your wife copes by suggesting to the children that you have a case of arrested development. “Your father acts like he is still fourteen,” she observes. And your children cope by text messaging their friends, “Dad speeeeding. Hear sirens. Yikes!” Somehow, everyone learns to make do.

Other things you learn: avoid I-95 in Connecticut at all costs. It is not so much a highway as a high-speed death march. It is a road that will erase the bloom from any rose, take the shine off every day. Even the nicest people turn mean and miserable on that stretch of road and it shows. Today, we stopped at a service area near Milford for lunch. The people in the restaurant all looked as if they had escaped from Attica. One man, I am certain, was an escaped convict. He was short and stocky and swarthy, wearing sunglasses, blue jeans and a black Hooters tee-shirt. He complained to the fast food attendant about his hamburger. It was rare. He became loud and agitated when she was unresponsive to his request for a well done hamburger. He was shouting, ranting, pounding his fists. People started to back away from the counter. This was turning into a headline from the New York Post: “Attica Felon Fells 27 -- Wanted Burger Well Done.”

This sabbatical, my first, is simply an extended vacation. It did not start out that way. I was supposed to be in France, cooking at the Cordon Bleu. When I first mentioned this to Laura, she responded with a question: “And what am I supposed to do with the children while you are off cooking in Paris for a month?” I did not have a ready answer. And now here we are. On the hell highway of superhighways, driving down I-95 in Connecticut. Our first destination: Mystic, notable for pizza, which can now be added to our list of what we travel for. Revised sentence: We are a family that travels for beer, pie, pizza and seafood.