I've worked out why Americans return to work and a> either feel glad to be back, or b> need a further vacation to recover from the one they just took!
After a fairly intense 5 day break down to Myrtle Beach I'm sat here providing cheap daycare so thought I'd try to do something progressive with my day other than spending time & $$$ for "back to school" stuff, as of Monday we'll have a 1st grader!
Ok, to the important thing, the vacation went well, Ryan enjoyed himself, Hannah tolerated the 1000 miles of car journey, we avoided jelly fish, thunderstorms and sunburn as well. Our trip began for me at 3am as obviously the car needed gas, and loading up with enough stuff to make people think we're leaving for a month. At 4 we grabbed 2 sleepy kids and set off, as planned at that time we made good progress and soon made our 1st stop with about 200 miles behind us and in time for a interstate breakfast. Our 2nd break enabled Hannah to stretch her legs and get a fresh diaper and then it was on to a BBQ place we'd seen on The Profit, we got there just after 11:30 with 400 miles down and in need of some pork & chicken. After that only a 60 mile trek was needed, with a fill up of cheap gas (great mileage from the tank, amazing what a light foot can drag out of it!)
A poor input into the map left us popping out on North Ocean Boulevard, not South (oops!) so we rolled down a busy seafront and eventually found the hotel and the badly marked registration office, by the time that was done we had to dodge a 5 minute rain storm and could get into our little room.
Due to having 2 cars there Paul had to use street parking for his car, not a problem as it turned out he got cheap all day slots and a space directly outside the hotel, we had a pass which enabled us to try to get in the small amount of spaces in the hotel area or the overflow across the street.
The major drama that night came when Paul went out to get pizza & a few necessities, using our car so he didn't lose his street spot, he took longer than we'd expected, eventually he came in and mutters something about "police being called". Turns out he'd got into an altercation with some muppet in the parking zone at the registration space and after some parking incidents & abuse staff & police had to intervene, he'd actually stayed which put him in the good place because the others had just disappeared, no idea what happened to them. Turns out things had settled down just enough for Paul to avoid major embarrassment and having to find alternative accommodation and the pizza turned out fine so all was well.
Ryan & Hannah enjoyed the beach, Ryan wasn't too sure of the waves though and Hannah didn't like the sand, with a few days of off-shore wind making the waves higher than would have been fun, we made full use of the on-site pools with Ryan finding a nice inflatable car to cruise around in, and Hannah loving the life of her pool cruiser, till she decided that swimming was easy and wanted to get out!
We managed to take a stroll down the famous boardwalk, and went out onto the Pier - Jessica managed to get all the PokeStops available and even a few new Water-based Pokeys ;)
As we had a kitchen area in the room we were able to cook & eat several meals in the room, which helped both Ryan & Hannah out, but the last two days we went out, once to a Mongolian BBQ which was fine except for a very odd "sauce" mentality - we're used to the idea of a wide selection of sauces, this had 3, sweet, spicy & salty which seemed to be created using a concoction of about 8 dips located in front of the grill. It was ok, but needed that variety of flavor offered by say Mighty Khan or the much missed BD's. The final day we ended up at a seafood buffet where Paul ate his body weight in Crab Legs, and then went back for a 2nd & 3rd portion, plus dessert. Ryan enjoyed watching boats & jetskis pass up the Intra-Coastal Waterway.
Then it came time for us to go home, again we planned an early exit and were on the road by 5, with a couple more stops this time, Jessica decided to play food roulette and insisted on McDonalds as breakfast & then an early lunch to meet up with Grandpa at another McD's ..... Somehow we've lived to tell the tale, it's a vacation miracle!
Home by 2:30 with 1020 miles on the car, and about $100 of gas all told. It took the cats some time to forgive us - well Poofy & Jake anyway, Jet couldn't be trusted so she went into a holding pen and was collected on Thursday which she celebrated by crapping on the floor within 5 minutes of return!
Jessica is already plotting an encore.
Till next time,
J,J,R & H.
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