Vacation
There is a Hell, and Destin, Florida sits right on top of it. How else could it be so hot when it's only 89 degrees outside? We left last Saturday at 5:30 am and we pulled back into the drive this past Saturday at 8 pm. It's a long drive. A tough ride when once upon a time you were ran over by a three year old in a mini-van while you tried to clean battery cables off. I'm content in knowing the van was the safest place for him to be considering how close we are to the road and the trecherous driving of maniac students still hungover from Friday night's festivities. I just failed to consider that I was in front of a car that he was inside with access to the gear shift. Anyway...boy I get off track easy...my knees, hips and ankles hurt like crazy the entire trip down and back from having to sit for so long. Ten hours start to finish, with about an hour's worth of breaks in between for eating and quick dashes to a potty wherever we could find one. I love vacation. Hate the getting there and the getting back parts with a passion.
The drive down was horrible. A few short hours into the trip we realized that some 70 miles back, the highway we were supposed to follow for 170 miles had split - and we had failed to notice. Damn road signs in Atlanta. It's confusing. And we were WAY off track. A look at the roadmap over breakfast gave us a new driving plan that wouldn't take us much out of the way. Woohoo! We were on the way again. Then Jake managed to slosh a ridiculously small amount of Coke from his cup and short out the inverter that ran the television that was supposed to be their entertainment on the long trip. It fried, it sizzled, it went kaplewey. Kids get bored fast.
Just as we were connecting with the roads we were supposed to be on in the first place, we rear-ended my brother at a red light on an exit ramp. My pop hit the brakes and the car just jumped forward and slammed us into the back end of my brother's practically brand spanking new Jeep Grand Cherokee. Holy crap! Could it get any worse, we wondered. Apparently Jeeps are made of some pretty strong stuff and Dodge Grand Caravans are made of something more like toilet paper rolls because his car was as good as it came off the lot and mine was crumpled beyond recognition in the front. A call to AAA and 3 1/2 hours later, we were on the road again. My car wasn't fixed, but it had been made drivable by a nice man at a Goodyear place who only charged me 34 bucks to do it. My pop is a good driver, bless his heart. He couldn't believe that we had managed to practically run over my brother, his wife, their baby and my mom, but it wasn't his fault. We finally figured out that something is making the cruise control come on and it tries to take us from pokey slow to 60mph in an instant, then refuses to stop no matter what we do. I'm not sure if that is really fixed yet. They're going to have to go over it when it goes into the shop just to make sure.
And we were only half way to Destin.
We bought a new power inverter at the K-Mart and headed off down the road again hoping against hope that we had seen the last of the bad luck for this trip. Thankfuly, the rest of the drive was uneventful. The kids now had a television again and we were on the right road once again after that long detour. I could worry about fixing my crumpled up car when we got home.
The house was wonderful. We had a private pool in a beautifully landscaped, fenced back yard, a lovely little tiled balcony with a porch swing outside my bedroom overlooking it all, and a jacuzzi tub in our bathroom with slick, cool marble all over the place. We spent most of the week just relaxing at the house. We cooked our own food on the grill by the pool. We swam in the pool rather than going to the beach because it was red flagged every day and the water was way rough. Being the tourists we are, we did go down one day and let the kids wet their feet but the pull was so strong I could barely manage to hold on to Em and Jake so that only lasted about 5 minutes. They got to feel the waves break over their feet, make a sand castle and got sand in every possible orrifice though, and they were happy.
We visited the Gulfarium and the kids got to see live animal shows with seals and dolphins and they were happy. They even got to pet real live dolphins. We drove down to Pensacola to visit the Naval Air Museum too. Jake LOVED the planes and they have a nice collection of personal effects from people who lived through, or died in,battles ranging from World War 1 to Vietnam and they had a cool presentation of planes recovered from the ocean floor. We got to ride a flight simulator that took us on a trip with the Blue Angels, then the kids did another one where they ran a bombing campain in Desert Storm. They loved it. Other than that, we spent our time at the house and Wal-Mart (buying food and stuff for sunburn - there is no such thing as a sunscreen that works with the sun there) and we just hung out. We did go beachcombing early one morning before sunrise but we didn't find much treasure. Instead we watched the sun come up while we picked up trash people sitting ten feet away from garbage cans are too lazy to get up and put in there. Jake just loves picking up trash. Maybe he really is going to be a garbage man when he grows up. He's always saying that he is.
I missed my husband. Every minute I wished he could have been there and I couldn't wait to get back home (though I didn't really want to leave Destin to do it) I just missed him. It was only our second whole week long vacation ever and he didn't get to go with us. I had a hard time sleeping without him. I missed his cooking. I missed him while I sat in the big swing looking at the moon late at night or in the hour before sunrise while I drank coffee all by myself out on the balcony. You know there are times I'd give my right arm to be away from the man. It pisses me off to have to fish his dirty socks from under the bed or pick up his beer bottle caps from all over the house because he just leaves them wherever. And it aggravates me to no end when he trims his beard onto a towel to keep from getting hair all over the sink and then shakes the towel into the toilet (thus covering it with hair) and I have to spend much longer wiping teenie hairs from all those hard to reach places on and around the toilet. But I've been so glad to see him since we got back home I wouldn't leave again for Destin right now - even if it was free - if I had to go without him. I love that irritating dude.
He missed me too. And he's told me that about a bazillion times since we got home. We pulled into the drive Saturday night just a little past 8. We had just dropped my pop off at his house and we were finally home. We had a car still packed to the top with stuff that we'd taken and what we accumulated while we were away. And we managed to accumulate a lot of stuff. They had a really great outlet mall nearby the house we stayed in, and their Wal-Mart had some kind of clearance sale on clothes and school stuff. Ok, so maybe I'm a goob for shopping clearance racks at Wal-Mart while on vacation. I can accept that. Anyway, we pulled up out front and when I opened the door to get out of the van I saw my husband drive up right behind us! We were so happy to see him. VERY happy not to have to unload all by ourselves after that long ride back. We gave him the gift we got him right away because, well, it was blocking everything else that had to come out of the van. He laughed when he saw that we had bought and brought home a palm tree since he missed going to Florida with us. Who knows if it will live here. The lady said it would if we took proper care of it in the winter time and sprinkled some salt around the base of it a couple of times a year. I reckon we'll see. He was thrilled with it. That's all that counts right now. He ooh'd and ahh'd over the gigantic horseshoe crab shell the kids found while we were beach combing. It's about 15 inches across and way bigger than any my husband has ever seen before so the kids were proud they decided to bring it home to show him (it was the only treasure we found that day...beaches there are clean, clean, clean). I have no idea what we will do with it.
We've been home now for a full day and a half. I've almost got everything put away and I'm in the mood for overhauling our entire house in the process. I get motivated that way after I've been to some place that's really cool. I'm wallpapering the bathroom today, painting our bedroom next, yadda yadda yadda. I don't know why I'm that way. When things open up here I have to call the insurance company and make arrangements for having my car fixed. Life returns to normal. Rushed, busy, hectic, always running behind...and apparently I like it that way. It's been a good week overall, but I'm sure glad to be home.
There is a Hell, and Destin, Florida sits right on top of it. How else could it be so hot when it's only 89 degrees outside? We left last Saturday at 5:30 am and we pulled back into the drive this past Saturday at 8 pm. It's a long drive. A tough ride when once upon a time you were ran over by a three year old in a mini-van while you tried to clean battery cables off. I'm content in knowing the van was the safest place for him to be considering how close we are to the road and the trecherous driving of maniac students still hungover from Friday night's festivities. I just failed to consider that I was in front of a car that he was inside with access to the gear shift. Anyway...boy I get off track easy...my knees, hips and ankles hurt like crazy the entire trip down and back from having to sit for so long. Ten hours start to finish, with about an hour's worth of breaks in between for eating and quick dashes to a potty wherever we could find one. I love vacation. Hate the getting there and the getting back parts with a passion.
The drive down was horrible. A few short hours into the trip we realized that some 70 miles back, the highway we were supposed to follow for 170 miles had split - and we had failed to notice. Damn road signs in Atlanta. It's confusing. And we were WAY off track. A look at the roadmap over breakfast gave us a new driving plan that wouldn't take us much out of the way. Woohoo! We were on the way again. Then Jake managed to slosh a ridiculously small amount of Coke from his cup and short out the inverter that ran the television that was supposed to be their entertainment on the long trip. It fried, it sizzled, it went kaplewey. Kids get bored fast.
Just as we were connecting with the roads we were supposed to be on in the first place, we rear-ended my brother at a red light on an exit ramp. My pop hit the brakes and the car just jumped forward and slammed us into the back end of my brother's practically brand spanking new Jeep Grand Cherokee. Holy crap! Could it get any worse, we wondered. Apparently Jeeps are made of some pretty strong stuff and Dodge Grand Caravans are made of something more like toilet paper rolls because his car was as good as it came off the lot and mine was crumpled beyond recognition in the front. A call to AAA and 3 1/2 hours later, we were on the road again. My car wasn't fixed, but it had been made drivable by a nice man at a Goodyear place who only charged me 34 bucks to do it. My pop is a good driver, bless his heart. He couldn't believe that we had managed to practically run over my brother, his wife, their baby and my mom, but it wasn't his fault. We finally figured out that something is making the cruise control come on and it tries to take us from pokey slow to 60mph in an instant, then refuses to stop no matter what we do. I'm not sure if that is really fixed yet. They're going to have to go over it when it goes into the shop just to make sure.
And we were only half way to Destin.
We bought a new power inverter at the K-Mart and headed off down the road again hoping against hope that we had seen the last of the bad luck for this trip. Thankfuly, the rest of the drive was uneventful. The kids now had a television again and we were on the right road once again after that long detour. I could worry about fixing my crumpled up car when we got home.
The house was wonderful. We had a private pool in a beautifully landscaped, fenced back yard, a lovely little tiled balcony with a porch swing outside my bedroom overlooking it all, and a jacuzzi tub in our bathroom with slick, cool marble all over the place. We spent most of the week just relaxing at the house. We cooked our own food on the grill by the pool. We swam in the pool rather than going to the beach because it was red flagged every day and the water was way rough. Being the tourists we are, we did go down one day and let the kids wet their feet but the pull was so strong I could barely manage to hold on to Em and Jake so that only lasted about 5 minutes. They got to feel the waves break over their feet, make a sand castle and got sand in every possible orrifice though, and they were happy.
We visited the Gulfarium and the kids got to see live animal shows with seals and dolphins and they were happy. They even got to pet real live dolphins. We drove down to Pensacola to visit the Naval Air Museum too. Jake LOVED the planes and they have a nice collection of personal effects from people who lived through, or died in,battles ranging from World War 1 to Vietnam and they had a cool presentation of planes recovered from the ocean floor. We got to ride a flight simulator that took us on a trip with the Blue Angels, then the kids did another one where they ran a bombing campain in Desert Storm. They loved it. Other than that, we spent our time at the house and Wal-Mart (buying food and stuff for sunburn - there is no such thing as a sunscreen that works with the sun there) and we just hung out. We did go beachcombing early one morning before sunrise but we didn't find much treasure. Instead we watched the sun come up while we picked up trash people sitting ten feet away from garbage cans are too lazy to get up and put in there. Jake just loves picking up trash. Maybe he really is going to be a garbage man when he grows up. He's always saying that he is.
I missed my husband. Every minute I wished he could have been there and I couldn't wait to get back home (though I didn't really want to leave Destin to do it) I just missed him. It was only our second whole week long vacation ever and he didn't get to go with us. I had a hard time sleeping without him. I missed his cooking. I missed him while I sat in the big swing looking at the moon late at night or in the hour before sunrise while I drank coffee all by myself out on the balcony. You know there are times I'd give my right arm to be away from the man. It pisses me off to have to fish his dirty socks from under the bed or pick up his beer bottle caps from all over the house because he just leaves them wherever. And it aggravates me to no end when he trims his beard onto a towel to keep from getting hair all over the sink and then shakes the towel into the toilet (thus covering it with hair) and I have to spend much longer wiping teenie hairs from all those hard to reach places on and around the toilet. But I've been so glad to see him since we got back home I wouldn't leave again for Destin right now - even if it was free - if I had to go without him. I love that irritating dude.
He missed me too. And he's told me that about a bazillion times since we got home. We pulled into the drive Saturday night just a little past 8. We had just dropped my pop off at his house and we were finally home. We had a car still packed to the top with stuff that we'd taken and what we accumulated while we were away. And we managed to accumulate a lot of stuff. They had a really great outlet mall nearby the house we stayed in, and their Wal-Mart had some kind of clearance sale on clothes and school stuff. Ok, so maybe I'm a goob for shopping clearance racks at Wal-Mart while on vacation. I can accept that. Anyway, we pulled up out front and when I opened the door to get out of the van I saw my husband drive up right behind us! We were so happy to see him. VERY happy not to have to unload all by ourselves after that long ride back. We gave him the gift we got him right away because, well, it was blocking everything else that had to come out of the van. He laughed when he saw that we had bought and brought home a palm tree since he missed going to Florida with us. Who knows if it will live here. The lady said it would if we took proper care of it in the winter time and sprinkled some salt around the base of it a couple of times a year. I reckon we'll see. He was thrilled with it. That's all that counts right now. He ooh'd and ahh'd over the gigantic horseshoe crab shell the kids found while we were beach combing. It's about 15 inches across and way bigger than any my husband has ever seen before so the kids were proud they decided to bring it home to show him (it was the only treasure we found that day...beaches there are clean, clean, clean). I have no idea what we will do with it.
We've been home now for a full day and a half. I've almost got everything put away and I'm in the mood for overhauling our entire house in the process. I get motivated that way after I've been to some place that's really cool. I'm wallpapering the bathroom today, painting our bedroom next, yadda yadda yadda. I don't know why I'm that way. When things open up here I have to call the insurance company and make arrangements for having my car fixed. Life returns to normal. Rushed, busy, hectic, always running behind...and apparently I like it that way. It's been a good week overall, but I'm sure glad to be home.
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