So Wolf.
Why not book a Flt back to Baltimore for Presidents day weekend (smack dab in the dark days). Just go yourself with the promise that you'll "mind the store" for your wife so she can do the same on another weekend. Solo visits are cheaper, logistics are easier and (my experience suggests) your son has stuff to share with you that just doesn't get out when Mom is around; (same-same for stuff he has to tell your wife).
While my own DD was at USNA, DW and I each did 1+ solo trip back to see DD each year; we just cut back on other travel. On my last trip out DD in her 1c year she stopped whatever she was doing as said:
"Dad, I want you to know how much your and mom's trips out here to visit have meant to me over these last 4 years. I love it here, but this can be a hard place to be sometimes, it just gets to be a dark grind. But, you'd come to visit and I'd have such a great time; the glow would last for 2weeks. Then I get back to it and I'd keep working, but by the time it was starting to feel like a lonely grind again, I'd look at the calendar and see that I only had 4-6 weeks to go until I'd see you or mom again, and take a mini vacation from this place.
Not her exact words, but pretty darn close------, She actually said that to me!
Truth is I got more out of those 3day weekend visits in Oct. Feb. than DD did. I got to see her in her environment and I got to support her in her USNA quest. We talked though a lot of stuff on those visits; I think I'm closer to her today than I was when we dropped her off at IDay 2015.
Fly in Friday, take the kid to DC Sat/Sun Night. Let him sleep in a real bed, order from a menu, visit a museum or 2 in DC. Let him stock up on treasures at Whole Foods on the way back to the Yard on Monday. Then let him show you around the Yard that he has come to think of as a home and tell you how it feels to be there.
I absolutely understand that these are tuff times for a lot of folks, but if you can swing the $$ this is a no-brainer (solos are cheaper, and actually better IMO). I've been lucky to have had the chance to do a fair amount of travel to some interesting places in my life, but those weekends with DD on the Yard and banging around in DC are among my absolute best memories.--------Kinda wish she was still there.
Shoot me a note if you decide to go.
Best:
Just Dad
