Weekend Alone or Family Trip?

Here's a detailed story about this coming weekend...read it if you're bored.  If you don't read it, suck it.

So some old friends of ours sent us a "come meet the baby" invitation last month for a get together they're having this Saturday in Maryland.  Seeing as how they flew down to see us and our son (then 6 months old) earlier this year, we thought we should make our best effort go see them even though the timing's bad.  Also, our friend's parents live in Maryland where the party's being held.  They actually live in NY.  So it's like we're getting off cheap by visiting them, not flying, and getting to also visit with my wife's family, who's also in Maryland.

After planning this stuff, I find out that a major pharmaceutical company is going to visit my research organization the Monday after our trip.  The company is considering giving us a lot of money to do research and, as such, my group is gearing up for the visit and planning a meeting tomorrow.  Oh yeah, my wife wanted to take either Monday or Friday off so we could visit with her family for a day instead of just driving up there, seeing our friends, and then leaving.  Well, I can't take Monday off.  Then it looked like I also couldn't take Friday off.

Needless to say, my wife's upset because she doesn't want to drive to Maryland by herself with our son.  I also don't like the idea of them driving to Maryland alone (we live in NC).  My wife's very capable of it and I doubt anything would happen, but being a dad and husband, I'm concerned, naturally.  With that said, the thought of having a couple of days by myself sounds great.  I don't remember the last time I had a day to myself, and I'm a person that enjoys time alone.

Anyway, I promised my wife I'd at least ask for Friday off despite my thoughts that it'd reflect poorly on me and that I'd be told 'no.'  So now I'm waiting to hear from my boss.  I hate waiting.