Fall vacation

This is the view from where I'm sitting right now. It's dark, so my camera did some weird things with the focus, but yep, those are ocean waves.

 

I've been working on a big computer upgrade at work, and vacation time has been scarce. So when I saw a window to get some time off, I jumped on it.

It seemed like my timing was pretty good. The hotel we like had their oceanfront king-bed rooms for $50 a night, so I made our reservation for Monday through Friday of this week.

Then, we heard about the hurricane. And it was heading right over where we were planning to stay.

Things have been so stressful at our house that Jeff and I were just determined we were going to get here. So we called the hotel and asked them if we could swap our reservation from Monday through Friday to Tuesday through Saturday. That would leave an extra day for the storm to move out. They're not that busy this time of year, so they were fine with the change.

But then my car broke.

My first car was a 1970 Mustang. If I opened the hood, I could pretty much tell you what everything was. With the car I have now, I'm barely able to add windshield washer fluid! Everything is computerized and complicated.

We have a good mechanic, so the first step was to get the car to him. At first, he couldn't figure out exactly what the problem was. Then, of course, it came down to computer modules. One bad module was causing several other good modules to freak out and act as if they were broken, too.

My car is much bigger than Jeff's car, so when the mechanic said he could have the car ready by lunch time today, we decided to wait it out, just for the convenience of having more room for packing. But when we went to pick it up, he couldn't get the new part to program correctly. Again, a computer problem.

We thought we'd be leaving town about 2 p.m., but it ended up being 4:30. And it was in Jeff's car. We had to leave mine with the mechanic. Jeff hadn't filled his gas tank because we thought we were taking the other car, so we had to get gas. Then we had to stop for dinner. Then we had to stop at the grocery store (because we eat breakfast and lunch in our hotel room).

We got to our hotel a little after 10 p.m.

We called the hotel before we left home to make sure they didn't have any storm damage and to tell them that we'd be checking in late. Luckily, the storm skipped over the hotel (and the whole area), and the lady at the front desk said to me, "Y'all just come on, hon. Your room is ready whenever."

By the time we got here, Jeff and I were tired and frustrated that we had missed half a day at the beach. But Biscuit ... he was WIDE OPEN!!!

"I SEE THE OCEAN!!!!!!! I HEAR THE OCEAN!!!!!" Biscuit yelled.

We kept having to shush him because most of the other people who are here at this time of the year are going to be fishing. And the fishermen get up early ... really early.

Biscuit has already declared that he wants to spend all day tomorrow digging in the sand. I brought plenty of layers to deal with whatever the weather is, so I hope to make Biscuit's wish come true.

Here are a few more photos from tonight:

This is the view from our fourth-floor room.

I don't think we'll be seeing anyone in the pool.
Can you see the pier in the background?

Too bad the moon couldn't have been full tomorrow night for Halloween.