Did Ya Miss Me?

After 9 straight days away from the office, I'm diving back into reality...and it's, in all honesty, calming.  I am a creature of habit.  I thrive for routine and consistency...and 8 hours away from my kids on a regular basis.  I am so beyond grateful for my mom and her generosity for making this vacation possible.  We really and truly had an awesome time.
 
I did learn a few lessons along the way though.  Like not all gas pumps at the same station have their grades in the same order.  Seriously.  I think it's a scam.  I used my GasBuddy app to figure out where I wanted to stop.  It looked like $3.14 was the cheapest I was gonna find within the next 30+ miles.  I pulled past the first pump and stopped at the second, ya know so others could still pull in behind me, being courteous and all.  At about 13 gallons, I realize that I'm pumping premium grade in my car at $3.44 gallon!!!  WTF?!?!  I was stumped as to how I could possibly make this mistake...yeah, I looked at the first pump I drove past and they had them swapped!!  Regular 87 octane was first on ALL of the other pumps I could see, but the one I was currently standing at pissing $.30 extra a gallon into had the premium first.  SCAM!!!!  I let it go and chalked it up to lesson learned.

Then we hit Eufaula, AL...with 3 out of the 4 bladders in the car FULL!!!  Apparently every other car on the road had the same predicament.  We tried Wendy's first...parking lot HELL with 25 cars being driven by retarded beach bound mullets.  FAIL!!  So we jump out of that lot as quickly as possible and move on to McDonald's.  I should've known better considering we'd just stopped at this same one on the way back from our girls trip 3 weeks earlier and walked out after standing at the counter for 5 min. without any of their employees acknowledging us.  We decide not to fight the crowd in the parking lot and opt to park in the shopping center lot that backs up to it...assuming that most of the traffic was from the drive-thru anyway.  WRONG!!  At this point our bladders are on the brink of rupturing, so we wait in the excruciatingly long line for the bathrooms.  Dumb move.  Those were the most disgusting stalls I've ever seen!!  I'm pretty certain they hadn't been cleaned or restocked since our last visit 3 weeks prior.  By the time we escaped them, our appetites had been squelched (well except Slou's).  Had I not been driving, I'd have looked up their info online and reported it to corporate on the spot...but by the time we got to the beach, it wasn't at the top of my priority list.

If the beach you are going to offers a chair/umbrella service...USE IT!!!  Shop around though...don't assume that there's only one vendor.  Granted mom was the one paying for it, but if you've got an extra $200 to spend...do it!!  Not having to worry about hauling our chairs back and forth everyday, along with towels, toys, floats, etc....definitely took a load off!  However, make sure you request ahead of time that you want your chairs placed as close to the water as possible without having to worry about them being washed out to sea.  The first couple of days we had issues with our chairs either being placed behind others or not being put out early enough and other people setting up camp in front of us before we got down there.  If you're gonna pay the extra money, you want to be able to see the water and your kids playing from your chair!!

Don't go deep sea fishing with a party of 4 females...2 of which being volatile bickering sisters.  Although it was an experience they can now say they've had, I will NEVER take them without a MAN present again.  Yes, there were deckhands there to help when lines got tangled or fish were caught and needed help getting them off the hook...but there wasn't any one on one help.  I got the shit beat out of me...and I'm not even exaggerating!!  I've got bruises up and down both legs, arms and all over my stomach from trying to brace the pole when I was reeling or helping Slou reel in the line.  Plus, between the 4 of us, we only caught 5 fish and only 1 was big enough to keep.  It was rather sad...but at least we got to see a bunch of dolphins!!

I am so thankful for all of the memories we were able to make crab hunting at night, jumping waves, watching Beelay dig into her first order of crab legs, driving by my grandparents old house and above all else spending time with my mom.  Even if the girls competed over my attention every waking moment and often didn't appear to be appreciative, they were.  They have had so many amazing vacations thanks to my mom and her BF over the years....THANK YOU!!!

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