Vacation, Had To Get Away

The Chockleys spent last week along idyllic highway 30-A. This was our first family beach trip smack in the middle of official beach season, and we found it was much hotter and more crowded than it is in October. However, it was still less hot and crowded than Memphis was last week, so we were happy to be there.

We stayed in the newish Old Florida Village, across the street from Goatfeathers and about six miles east of Seaside. The location was nice because it wasn't very congested on that end, and also because it was across the street from Goatfeathers. Not only did we spend our life savings on fresh seafood from their market, but we also got two meals to go from their restaurant.





A controversial feature of our lodgings was the pool located directly behind our house. Before we left, several people had advice along the lines of, "I'd never stay in a place with a pool, I'd never get my kids out of it and onto the beach." It proved to be a mixed blessing. Yes, I had trouble getting my kids out of the pool and onto the beach. That's hard for me to understand, because I would rather be on a beach than just about anywhere. I would happily pitch a tent in the sand and spend my nights there if the Walton County authorities would let me. So I did end up alone on the beach a good bit, wistfully watching the other families build sand castles together. But don't cry for me, I was able to finish five books while I was there so the childless beach time was well spent.




The plus side to the pool situation is that Connor loves the pool the way I love the beach, so he was in heaven. Despite the fact that the pool water was around 95 degrees, he wanted to be in it as much as possible. His swimming skills improved, he learned to do a cannonball and other fancy non-diving jumps, and got good at diving for sunken toys even in the "deep" end (5 ft). Chloe's swimming improved over the week too, and by our last night she was ready to swim underwater with no one holding her. It was an impressive developmental leap.





We celebrated Father's Day and Connor's (and Carrie's and Marshall's and Abraham's) birthday while we were there. On Connor's big day, we spent the hot part of the afternoon eating lunch out and going to see "Up," which made me cry like a baby and spawned endless "SQUIRREL!" shouts over the remainder of the vacation. What a great movie! We also did a bit of shopping, from the boutiques around the corner to the giant Goodwill to the Silver Sands outlet mall. (And several trips to Publix, of course.)





Then Saturday morning, we loaded up the cars to head back to reality. I started crying by the time we made it off 30-A and onto 98. This morning, Connor crawled in my bed crying. "I don't want to go back to school yet!" Thankfully, we've got one more day.