It's a lot to ask of a child with autism to spend four nights away from the predictability of home. But Curtis has become used to making four trips or so a year to Danbury, Connecticut, to visit family.  He's accustomed to these trips, a 4.5 hour car ride typically, which have occurred since birth. Curtis handles the travel and high volume of family quite well at this point through lots of practice, trial and error.
Familiar movies help with the car rides. As do stops at state welcome centers so Curtis can grab some free maps.
We used to like to play 'high point/low point' to get the good and bad out of Curtis' day as he saw it. Now, he's too cool for that game and refuses to answer the question. But here were the high points and low points to his Thanksgiving family week as I saw them.

High Point

On Thanksgiving, Curt's uncle started a fire outside in the evening and had marshmallows to roast. Curtis is very fond of this activity, never missing a marshmallow roasting opportunity. He also very much likes the idea of getting family and friends around a fire.
There were 4 or 5 of us who hung around the fire for most of the night while others would come in and out of the house. Curtis was having a blast but would notice when attendance around the fire dropped. He would stand up from his bucket seat and say "I'm going to get more of the family." Five minutes later he would appear in the driveway with at least 3 people in tow each time, then assigning them available seats by the fire. Curtis does not often come back from recruiting trips empty handed. As his uncle said, "How do you say no to Curtis?" I struggle with that one myself. Curtis kept them kept the party going with some sweet dance moves, providing further incentive not to disappear back into the house.

Low Point

We went to a nice playground on Friday with the weather unseasonably agreeable. Curt was against the trip to the playground, though he couldn't explain why, and we thought /hoped he'd change his mind as we got there. Especially once he saw his younger cousin running around having fun. Instead, he refused to leave the car when we parked and things only got worse from there. Curtis was in the backseat with his mom and was crying, hitting, and completely frustrated that he didn't want to leave the car and couldn't exactly figure out why. He was just determined to be defiant but it was very upsetting to him at the same time.
After a while, I played with his cousin on the playground in hopes that would lure him out. Instead, he would peek up from the backseat of the car but refuse to get out. He told his mom he didn't want to be sad because it was Friday, his favorite day, but it can be hard to get Curt back on track when the wheels have come off. What's more, if he didn't get out and play at some point before we left, he would spend the rest of the night regretting not getting out of the car and talk about it incessantly, like resulting in additional meltdowns.
In a last ditch effort, after about 40-45 minutes, we were able to get him out of the car by making it appeal to him as an adventure. There was a hole in the fence he could crawl though to enter the playground and this proved the draw to break his stand-off. He snapped out of it once his feet hit the playground and he began to run around with his cousin. While these situations are difficult to go through, it's always a positive when he works his way through it. By the time we left, he had put the rough start and this temporary low point behind him.

Greg, Dad

      We returned from our first real family vacation this past weekend after 6 days away from home. We had a cabin in Vermont at a great family campground with a start to the trip that was delayed by an emergency surgical procedure for Laura. A late start meant a disruption to the vacation plans Curtis had already agreed too, slightly raising his anxiety level about the trip already containing mostly unknowns. The vacation was a huge success and Curtis now has an answer to the question he posed to his mom a few months ago, "Mom, what's a vacation?".
      In most ways, Curtis' autism did not manifest itself to the point where we made a point about discussing it with other people. We left interpretation of his obvious uniqueness open to many parents and discussed it rather thoroughly with others.  As far as friends, he mostly stuck with younger children and girls close to his age. Some of the boys his age kept asking how old he was and were largely stuck on the developmental differences of Curtis and the other 7 year old boys. This is often the case with boys his age however. Indeed, none of the 7 and a half year old boys carried a Smurfette doll around and gave it a voice narrating van rides to the lake. Curtis couldn't care less that there were boys who didn't think it was cool.
      Our first night at the camp we realized that before dinner, families staying at the camp meet on the dining hall steps where they are told of entertainment lined up for the evening and other events pertaining to the camp. Curtis wanted no part of this ritual and went out to the rock pictured above and ignored the meeting. Not completely ignoring it of course. He found the need to let out loud, nervous laughter to the group while the director spoke. This drew the glare of several "high brow" parents but we figured it was worth Curtis working through this process and not forcing him to sit with the group and make a scene. He never really integrated into this meeting over the course of the week but he did manage to keep quiet at a nearby table during the nightly address.
       Activiti es at the camp went according to a sign-up sheet and the second morning at the camp, I signed up me and Curtis to play wiffle ball. It was difficult to get him there but when it turned out the time for wiffle ball was later in the day and he was instead expected to change directions and get basic tennis instruction, it did prompt an immediate meltdown. He did not take this sudden change in schedule in stride and made it impossible for the instruction to continue for the other kids. I ended up removing him from the scene in favor of some wind down time with just his family. These are really the only two instances that jump out at me as particularly difficult to handle while on vacation, though Laura may have other stories from activities they did together.
       The weather cooperated, the lake was open all afternoon and it was in the water where Curtis was his happiest. He conducted several concerts out on the docks with parents, kids, and staffers looking on and one staffer told us that getting to know Curt was the highlight of his week. In addition to his uninhibited dance and song routines, Curtis had many people laughing with his deadpan literal interpretations of a magic show and other activities and events that confused him. By weeks conclusion, he became a very popular camper, constantly being queried for conversation by kids and adults and rattling off the names of his new friends every night before bed.

Greg, Dad