What I did on my summer vacation (part 1)

The girls started back this week so I thought I would follow the traditional first homework assignment by writing about my summer. I already wrote about one part of it a cuple of weeks ago but either forgot to save it or OD ate it. In any case, it is gone.

For the first time in years, I took a real vacation. The family along with in-laws and friends of the family (20 people in all) piled into 6 cars in late June and headed to Myrtle Beach. The trip down itself was pretty relaxed, being broken up into 2 days. The weather was great until we hit the mountains and which time, the heavens opened. Not exactly where you want to have limited visibility. We worked through it though and got to out hotel at around 3-4pm. The hotel was really nice and even had free wireless internet access – since I left on a friday, I did fire up the laptop to make sure any misc issues were addressed. That night all of us went to a buffet that a few who have made this trip before recommended. The food wasn’t bad although I would have liked to add the crab. It was also my first experience with the South and sweet iced tea. Normally I have mine without.

The next morning we took off and learned that when L’s brother says it’s all gravy now when referring to how much distance we have left to travel, it tends to be a lot longer than you would think.  In any case, we made great time and got to the house rerented early. Most of us hung around the beach while waiting for a couple in our group to get the keys. Let me tell you about the house itself. The front entrance opens into the dining room. To the left was a nice bedroom and the right a good sized kitchen with laundry room off to the side. Beyond the dining room was a small living room with bedrooms on either end. L, the girls and I had the one to the right.  It was nice too. Had its own bathroom and sliding glass door to the back patio. The patio ran the entire length of the back of the house with an identical one above for those on the second floor. There were 3 bedrooms upstairs surounding a nice  sized family room. Did I mention the house was on stilts? You really didn’t notice except sometimes at night. Anyway, the place was perfect.

Most of us spent the days on the beach. We had several boogie boards and later an air mattress to ride the waves (nice waves too). Most of the women worked on their tans while exchanging books written by Janet Evanovich. I’ve never read one myself but I have never seen so many people laughing so hard. We also brought a large volleyball net and over the course of the week, played something like 15-20 games. It was also because of this that L, the girls and I bough these beach slipper things that surfers tend to wear. After a couple of days, barefoot, our feet hurt. The women said that they have to pay manicurists big $$$ to get the same treatment. Hmmm…. I guess I should also mention that L’s brother is very competative. I took great pleasure on the the latter days beating the big guy in VB. You could see in his eyes when he quit which coincidentally was when proceeded to start drinking beer.

The evenings (and an early day after everyone got their initial sunburn), we went out to eat. Often they were big buffets but we also hit the local Margaritaville and Midievel Times. The latter was a lot fo fun in that you watch live jousting, etc. all centered around a loose theatrical story. The girls ate that up.

Sadly the trip was over way too soon but it was one of the most relaxing trips I had taken in a long time. I didn’t even touch the laptop until thursday and that was because my dad thought a server I run that handles several email lists wasn’t responding. I only stayed online long enough to fix it and quickly scan my email. That was when I discovered my chairman was going to take that other position. I suspected it for a long time but at least he finally got around to telling us.

(To be continued…)