What happens in the United States stays in the United States: Take N

My flight leaves for Los Angeles at noon. I will be staying in Beverly Hills, and then I will go to the Research Triangle in North Carolina, where will spend most of the subsequent 3.5 weeks. While based in the Research Triangle, I will be visiting Urbana-Champaign for a few days and whatever city Davidson College is in for a day. Then in the middle of April, it's back to Beverly Hills and Pasadena. I'll be returning to Oxford in late April. (Hopefully there won't be any volcano anger this time.) This is mostly a work trip, but some fun things are confirmed and hopefully the other fun things that are planned but not confirmed will work out. I feel that I am somehow less excited about the trip than I should be, even though there are a couple of things to which I am looking forward. That's not usually a good sign, given that I haven't even left yet, but hopefully I'll be excited once I am actually in the States. (Maybe it's because this trip is so predominantly for work and I'm not going to any spectacular locations that I'm not excited?)