post-vacation re-entry stress

The trouble with living on an island is that you have to really (REALLY) want to live on the island - the scrimmage quotient is enormous and persistent.

And yet, the island itself is beautiful, and peaceful, and fun to row around the harbor of, and the inhabitants include brother and wife and baby nephwe/cousin who is starting the talking thing.... so what I really want, is to visit the island, and so we did. There was a good deal of fried fish (brother runs a fish cart called Hot Fat, which doesn't have a web presence yet), a lot of nephew sitting, some rowdy cousining, sailing and rowing practice. It was veryvery nice.

It is also nice to able to

• drive to the store and buy lots and lots of cheap groceries
• flush the toilet for any reason
• run the water til it gets cold (and not have to filter it)
• have ice on a whim, or a popsicle that hasn't melted partly on its trip to the island
• have a long shower
• indulge in computers and video watching
• toss the dishes in the dish washer

and I want to know, why does one week of vacation laundry take up as much space and time as two or three weeks of regular laundry?