Katie over at
Sluiter Nation is doing Top Ten Vacation Memories for Top Ten Tuesdays.
Well okay!
I like lists. I like vacations. I like memories. And ten seems like a good number. So I will play.
My original intent was to do a little riff on the theme and go with my top ten vacation photos but I realized that some of my best pictures don't really have a strong story associated with them and some of my best memories don't have a very good picture (if they have one at all)
So....you're gonna get what you're gonna get which is going to be a mish-mash of both. There might be more than ten. Deal with it.
Atlantic Beach. North Carolina. May 1986. Senior Week
There were seven of us girls.....and one dad. I have NO idea why we brought an adult with us to Senior Week. I think one of the girls had parental figures that insisted on a chaperone. But.....King Krumpet, as awesome as he was (and is) propbably isn't what they had in mind. But that's okay because he was cool!
He bought us wine coolers! He let us stay out all night! And his daughter, Krumpet, grew up to be pretty darned terrific with a great head on her shoulders, a strong sense of self and the sturdiest backbone of anyone I know.
Our first or second night there, one of us decided that we needed to add some boys to our party. So we posted a sign on the door. King Krumpet had to add his own spin to the sign.
(7 girls. 1 guy. NOT RIGHT!! HELP!! More Girls!)
Despite his addition, we managed to pick up Lin. Who was dumb as a stump. But cute. He and Krumpet hit it off well.
Ocean City, Maryland. August 1991.
Five years later, five of us plus King Krumpet (no longer serving as a chaperone - we just brought him along because he's fun!) reconvened in OC. Tea and I quickly discovered the view out of our bedroom window was pretty spectacular.
Bob the Hurricane hit OC that week. (Yes, Bob the Spider was named after Bob the Hurricane). We went to bed while the storm was raging and I woke up to someone saying that the world had changed while we slept and I thought, "What did Bob do?"
But it wasn't Bob. It was the USSR. It fell. Or
something.
We went out that night. Saw a band. I fell for the guitarist. It was the start of my long history of being a band groupie.
Lillibet became annoyed by the prevalence of Candy Kitchens on every corner. So....we had to pointeach and every one out to her. "Hey Lillibet?" "WHAT?" "Candy Kitchen!"
Brownwood and San Antoino, Texas. August 1987.
Tea's grandmother lived in Brownwood. We spent a few days bumming around town before taking a road trip to San Antonio. To this day, the Riverwalk in San Antoino still astounds me. Such lush and serene beauty in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the US. And touring The Alamo, feeling the history? Was like nothing I'd ever felt before and I've only felt it once since (in Lower Manhattan, standing on Ground Zero). I don't have any pics of San Antonio right now but check this space, I might add some later.
I DO have some other pics though!
Me, looking all hot and stuff. And the sad thing is, back then? I STILL thought I was fat!
Tea, The Dip. You know she's a dip because there is a sign saying so. (To be fair, she has the same pic...only of me, of course)
Tea and I, taking a mirror pic, before mirror pics were cool.
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. September 2006.
ROAD TRIP! Lola and I, along with our friend, Little Bo Peep took a mini-vacay to Myrtle Beach. We spent most of our time (when we weren't on the beach of course) at Broadway at the Beach, a massive shopping/entertainment complex. So many nightclubs, so much free time, wheeeeee!!!!
We also spent a good chunk of time searching for Seaboard Street. I was ready for my first tattoo and all the tattoo joints were on Seaboard Street. Which we couldn't find. There was a mighty quest and eventually we found the place and I got my tattoo. A little pink martini glass on my back. Yay martinis!
The next day, after dinner and cocktails at Margaritaville, we were at Fat Tuesdays enjoying (more!) cocktails and Lola decided she was ready for her own tattoo. And Bo Peep wanted to get another done as well. We brainstormed various ideas. We finally hit upon the most genius idea ever. ASS NIPPLES! Nipples! Tattooed on our asses!
So we went back to Seaboard Street but the shop that had done my tattoo the previous night was busy and the other place we went was skanky and Lola got askeered and Bo Peep got into an arguement with the tattoo guys so no ass nipples for us.
Phoenix, Arizona. Las Vegas, Nevada. Grand Canyon, UT. November 2006.
I went to visit Zim. My ZimMAAAAY!!! We met online and became bffs very quickly. This was our first IRL meeting and we clicked as quickly in person as we had over teh interwebs. There was mini golf. And an errant golf ball. That went into a suspicious looking hole. A hole that looked as if it probably harbored suspicious looking spiders. It was a Hole of Spidery Doom.
After the Hole of Spidery Doom, there was DDR. Neither of us had DDR'd before. Both of us are clumsy. There were spectators.
From this vacation was born our continued fascination with bathrooms of note. It started with a Jack in the Box. Two toilets, two doors....one stall. No wall between the toilets. Zim and I each walked in by separate doors and found ourselves in the same stall.
Since then, we're both been on the lookout for bathrooms of distinction. We've even created a FB
fan page for them!
From there, road trip to Vegas! Our rental car got upgraded to a super schmexy PT Cruiser.
Zim had one wish for our Vegas trip - to get her picture taken with Elvis. We had a hard time finding him though. We eventually had to make do with a janky time-share selling Elvis but I guess janky Elvis is better than no Elvis.
MY one wish for our trip was to check out the Burger Bar, a joint I had seen on Food Network. I HAD to have one of their chocolate donuts. Glazed donut bun, chocolate ganache burger, strawberry and other garnishes and it looked like a real burger. YUM!
And of course, it wouldn't have been a complete road trip without the mother of all mirror shots - Zimmie and I - in the bathoom - AT THE BELLAGIO!
From there, we road tripped to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. You can not tell from this picture that we were both terrified by the great yawning abyss to our backs, can you?
Washington, DC. August 2007.
This was not technically MY vacation. It was Zim's. She had come into Baltimore for my wedding to That Man. Following our rehearsal dinner, I got a call from my friend Chandler. Chandler lives in Florida. But Chandler was at BWI (in Baltimore). He needed to get to DC. And his ride had fallen through.
Do not ask me why he called me. Do not ask me why he was in Baltimore and yet did not manage to attend my wedding. Do not ask me why, on the night before I was getting married, I agreed to pick him up and drive him to the Metro station. Do not ask me anything because it is way too long a story to go into here.
Suffice to say that Zim and I DID pick him up and we DID drive him to the Metro and when we got there I had a brilliant idea.
"Zim," I said. "How would you like to get a quick look at DC?"
My plan was to jump on the Metro, get out at the Smithsonian, look at the Washington Monument, look at the Capitol building, get back on the Metro, get home and to bed by 1am.
Didn't quite work out that way. I blame the trees. There was also the unfortunate police tape incident and the theivery from a federal building incident.
We ended up not getting home until 4am. I don't regret it for an instant.
Las Vegas, Nevada. September 2007. The Crosby Death March through the Nevada desert.
Our honeymoon. We were staying at the Monte Carlo. We took the bus all the way to the other end of the Las Vegas Strip to check out a sandwich joint I had read about. It was good. Turkey, cranberry, yum.
But then we tried to get the bus back. And we waited. And waited. And the bus was not coming. I finally said, "The hell with this, let's just walk back."
NOT one of my better ideas. Did I mention it was Vegas? In the middle of summer? High noon. And Vegas, in case you were not aware, is in the middle of the fracking DESERT.
Ocean City, Maryland. August 2008.
That Man and I took the kids to the beach for a weekend. The first beach visit they would be able to remember.
I forgot my suit though so had to stop at a beach shop and buy a new one. This sign cracked Buttercup up.
(please do not squeeze the fudge)
Because you know, the only reason to have a sign like this is because of prior fudge squeezing incidents.
The kids quickly fell in love with the beach. Opus and Buttercup in particular took to the surf. Maisy preferred just playing in the sand.
There's no story behind this picture. It's just one of the best pictures of Buttercup ever taken.
That night we took the bus down to the boardwalk. On the bus ride back, Opus lost his arm and fell asleep on his sister. Who was none to thrilled with this turn of events.
Enchantment of the Seas. The Atlantic Ocean. May 2009.
Lola and I took this cruise together. The best vacation story EVER took place on this trip.
We had planned an excursion for our stop in Key West. We were to go out on a boat, check out some dolphins, do some snorkeling and some kayaking and get back to the boat by 3pm.
There was some concern about the timing though because the excursion wasn't due back until 2:50 and we were both a little worried the ship would leave without us. But, we had booked through the cruise line and I figured they knew what they were doing.
So we get on the little boat which was captained by exactly the sort of guy you'd picture captaining a boat in Key West. Jimmy Buffett all the way.
We went to the place where the dolphins were and we saw plenty of dolphins and I tried to take pictures but those guys move way too fast so all I got were pics of open water.
We were about to head off to the place where the snorkeling was but then? Someone saw sharks. So we had to stop and look at the sharks. And also? Express gratitude that the dolphin place was NOT the same as the snorkeling place.
So we go to snorkel. Snorkel snorkel snorkel. Except the water was cloudy and I couldn't see anything and I was disappointed and came back to the boat. Others were still snorkeling. And there was still kayaking to be done. (The kayaking and the snorkeling were being done at the same place at least. So some snorkeled while others kayaked and then the plan was to switch the snorkelers would kayak and the kayakers would snorkel and everyone would be happy, yay)
Lola wasn't feeling the kayaking love so we decided to sit that part out and we chatted with another group of non-kayakers for a bit. And then I checked the time. And kinda freaked out. Because it was 2:30 and there was still much kayak and snorkel activity occuring.
I inquired politely of the Captain. "Excuse me? Are we going to be able to get back in time?" I was assured that yes, we would, not to worry about it, everything is under control, others still need to finish their turn kayaking, please leave him alone to do very important captain-y things and would I like a rum and coke?
Well, sure!
So he pours me a rum (with a little coke) and one for Lola and a few others as well.
I am enjoying my rum (with a little coke) but still....it's 2:40pm. <fret fret fret>
So! I am all genuis-y and stuff. I whip out my handy dandy little iPhone (YES! I take my phone everywhere. Don't judge) and was relieved to see that despite being in the middle of the ocean (which I later found out was not the ocean but rather the Gulf, who knew?), that I still had a signal.
And I look up the phone number for Royal Carribbean.
And I call them.
"HELLO! I am a passenger on Enchantment of the Seas but right now? I am stuck on a boat in the middle of the ocean! And it's is 2:45 and the ship is leaving at 3pm and I don't think we'll get back there on time! And I can SEE our ship from here but I don't think I can swim there that fast! Can you please ask the ship to wait for us!"
Lola and the other passengers are cracking up and I can't help a little giggling myself. However, I don't think the friendly Royal Carribbean lady was taking me very seriously. She asked for my phone number and said she'd call me back.
The Captain shoots me the Death Glare. He whips out his laptop. He clacks some keys.
"There!," he says. "I just sent them an email and told them to wait for us. Now SHUT UP AND DRINK YOUR RUM!"
So I did. I drank a lot of rum. And we got back in time. But I blame the rum (and the captain!) for what happened next.
We go up to the pool deck for lunch. Then we get ourselves some Mai Tais and get in the pool.
Ahhhh....nice pool! Salt water pool! This is the life.
I finish my Mai Tai. Lola is about halfway through hers. Then there is a splash and she gets a nice dollop of pool water in her drink. She grimaces and sets it aside.
"WAIT!", I say.
My thought process goes something like this. "Well, yes, it's salt water but sometimes sweet and salty go together so maybe the drink is still drinkable."
My thought processes do NOT say, "Hey! This is pool water! People have been swimming in it! There are bodily fluids in this water!"
So....yes. I take the glass from Lola.....and.....I drink the pool water. In front of witnesses.
The rest of the cruise, people were saying to me, "Hey! Arent't you the girl who drank the pool water?"
Luckily, I had Richie Rich, my Pretend cruise Ship Boyfriend to console me.
Richie Rich (and, unlike every other name on this blog, that actually IS his real name....well, the Richie part at least) was the karaoke guy. I think I caught his attention when I sang "You Oughtta Know". To him. Then I somehow got roped into singing "I Honestly Love You". WITH him. It was bad.
After that, he seemed to be following my every move. He was cute so I let him. And then, he talked me into playing BINGO. Which I won. And my prize? A free cruise! And immediately after that, I went into the casino and turned $10.00 into $160.00.
Richie Rich was my good luck charm.
Oh and Lola gave a lap dance to a statue.
There are tons of other stories and tons of other pictures but this post is long enough already, dont'cha think?
~~Marie
In which I shut up and drink my rum. Among other things.
