Post Vacation Post

Ahhhh. Vacation was purely wonderful. Sun, sand and plenty of relaxation.

Before we headed down to Corolla on Sunday morning, I managed to squeeze in a little friendly meet up at our halfway stop in Maryland.

Lolly picked me up and we went to a wonderful, tasty lunch at Great Sage. It was deeeeelish! I managed to easily eat my entire sandwich even after we got an appetizer. It was too good to put down! We missed each other at this year's festival so I was really glad we were able to connect before she left for her big trip!

The ride down was pretty uneventful. (In comparison to the shutdown of the New Jersey Turnpike in the northbound direction on the way to Maryland causing a 3 hour backup on our southbound side due to nothing other than curiosity factor!) I did manage to knit and finish the first Lichen Rib Sock (can't read in the car, but I can knit!). Here it is enjoying the porch swing at the beach house.

After a traditional stop at The Border Station on the Virginia/North Carolina border for gas and last minute provisions we arrived at the beach.

We couldn't have asked for better weather. High 80's, low 90's and not a cloud in the sky. A bit of rain on the first day didn't dampen our spirits - it just gave us time to unpack and get settled! We still managed a trip to the beach that day before the showers came.

I even managed to get Hubby to go to the beach with me one day. You can see how happy he is.

He isn't the biggest fan of sand, though he loves to swim, he just prefers his water surrounded by concrete. I was truly appreciative of his sacrificing his comfort to keep me company for a while in the sand. His week was filled with scuba adventures off the coast - his new passion. Lucky for him, we did have a pool at the house, which also got plenty of use - it provided a great salt water rinse off station after a long day at the ocean.

Not a heck of a lot of knitting was done during the week due to a persistent intruder to my knitting time.

I started it on Monday and finished on Saturday. I will hold all opinions and information private for those who are still reading or have not started! I will say it managed to hold my attention for over 700 pages. That is an accomplishment in itself.

Being a typical vacation, it was full of good food. Being at the seashore, this food consisted of a lot of seafood!

Two nights we got tons of super fresh seafood (crab, scallops, shrimp, oysters) from Steamers. My vegetarian cousin and I, the seafood disliker, had spinach and mozzarella ravioli....everyone who did eat it raved how good it was. Ordering loads of food from them has kind of become a tradition.

Good food was also had by the turtles of the area. The lake that the house we stayed in backed up on is home to many turtles and snakes. Down by the community pool, there is an area where you can feed the turtles. They come in swarms as soon as a piece of bread hits the water.

This is a very small representation! It's pretty funny - you look out over the lake from the dock area and you can just see their little heads just swimming towards you. Like we were being invaded! They are always more than hungry and snatch up any bread we throw to them. Always a favorite activity for the kids. We usually end up going more than once!

Most of the week was spent on the beach reading or just simply sitting and listening to the waves and the kids play. Overall, it was a pretty darn perfect week. It was really hard to go back to work this morning!

We drove back on Sunday in one big trip - we left the Outer Banks at 4:45 AM and arrived on our doorstep at around 3:30 PM. We were so lucky - we hit pretty much no traffic at all and had a pretty pleasant drive.

I can't wait until next year.....