Counting the dead armadillos ...............

The sand is so clean and white, the beach so wide

This was our hotel. our room was behind the round Tiki Bar roof on the left.

Wheelie in his element. In the sun, In the fresh air, a box of peanuts and a beer, and a book.

Home again, home again, jiggety jay!

It didn't take me long to pack last Sunday. When it comes to packing a suitcase I am the bomb.
It was those last minute pesky things that kept us from leaving at ten am. But when we did, the house was clean, the beds changed, the garbage out, the bills paid.

The trip down was a cinch. It's basically a straight shoot from Atlanta to the coast. You'd think it would be boring, but it really wasn't. Not to us.
We packed some of our favorite CDs and just drove on"cruise" at 75-80 all the way. Not a whole lot of traffic either.
Listening to the likes of Hoyt Axton, Brahms, Beethoven, Wes Montgomery, John Mayal and Chopin, we enjoyed inhaling the strong sweet scent of honeysuckle and liguster. At times it was a bit overwhelming, but wonderful just the same.

It was further than I remembered. And 2/3 of the way my body felt like a sore bag of bones. Time to stop and get out.
We had made a pisstop (yes, you heard that right, haha) right before we hit Macon.
However, around Metter we were both pretty sore. So we stopped and got us some lunch, which brought our blood sugars up again, and on we went.

We were surprised to see how much Hilton Head has changed since we were there last. I may be off a year or so, but in 1986 my sister came over with her two boys, and we took them to Orlando (Disney and Seaworld) then drove up the coast to Hilton Head, where we stayed for a few days. Everyone burned to a crisp that summer, with little Bugs sporting blisters on her shoulders and nose, poor thing.

It seems greener, the trees larger, more Spanish moss.
It's truly beautiful there.
Along the main roads they've built wide walk/bike trails, which swirl through the woods and wooden boardwalks over the many ponds.
So lush and clean.
Even though there are a zillion stores and restaurants, you really can't see most of them from the road because they are hiding behind the greenery, which caused a bit of frustration at first.

We arrived at our hotel, checked in, Wheelie promptly rolled onto his bed and didn't get up for hours.

We had a ground level (handicapped accessible) room which happened to be about ten yards from the Tiki Bar.
When we arrived the live band was just finishing up. Thank GOD, I thought, who needs THAT noise all day long.

HA!

Little did we know, but we had LIVE music every damn afternoon and every damn evening!
And it was LOUD!
Mostly one fellow with a guitar, singing pretty much stuff from a fake book. One was better than the other, the fellow in the afternoon was a strummer, the other one played the guitar so it sounded like he played four different instruments.

Anyway, the first day we listened, and enjoyed ourselves. The second day we...nnnnot so much...the rest of our stay we either just left in the afternoon, or we turned on the AC fan to kind of mask the sound.

After day two however, I decided to do something about my attitude and flipped my "annoyed bitch switch" to my "accept and go with the flow" mode.
We were on vacation after all, and I needed to relax and enjoy. Dammit!

That first evening we decided to eat dinner at the attached restaurant. The Grouper. I should have know I hate grouper, ugliest fish alive)
(remember now, still in the "AB mode" here)

We seemed to be the only guests. Hmmm...should have told us something!.
The proprietor showed us to our table (smack in the middle, instead of the ocean view window)
and proceeded to tell us about the $17 dollar all you could eat prime rib or chicken buffet.

We didn't feel like prime rib so we both ordered something chicken from the regular menu.

They were out of chicken.

It was 6 pm.

So Wheelie ordered some kinda stew/pasta dish.

They were out of that too (no chicken).

By this time I wasn't hungry anymore. But Wheelie needed to eat, so we decided on the buffet.

The prime rib looked beyond it's prime, so we skipped that. He didn't want any of the salad stuff, which there was plenty of, and we went straight to the veggies and the chicken (I guess all the chicken went to the buffet) There wasn't anything else, except a large bowl with butter pats and napkins.

I asked the guy if there was any bread. He promised it would be served.
I had to go ask again after ten minutes, since no one bothered to check on us.
Some chick who didn't speak English rushed us a basket of, I guess, herb biscuits. Awful!

We left, we paid, but we told our waiter we weren't happy. He didn't speaka de Inglish either, so I doubt he understood.

Mind you, every evening I would peek into the restaurant and every time the place was empty. What a waste.

On Monday we went for a drive. Me and my absolute lack of direction!! We didn't get very far, so we went back and we decided to scope out the place and the pool and the beach instead.

We noticed a long mat leading onto the beach, except there was no access to it for the chair.
We tried at one point, and the chair got stuck in the gravel/sand and we busted something. Two of the lugs came loose holding the left wheel in place. I tightened them with my fingers as good as I could. Did a better job when we got home and actually used the wrench.

I don't think the mat, which seemed to work well for bicycles, would have worked anyhow. Wheelie aint' the 150 pounds he thinks he is, and it would have been hard to push him. Besides that, the mat ended about ten yards from the "hard sand" so it really was useless.
Bless his little heart, he didn't mind not going onto the beach. He was happy to sit on the patio, reading, drinking a beer and getting a bit of sun.

As for me. I went on little walks. I would go 15 minutes one way, then come back (check on Wheelie) and go back out and go the other way. Perfect plan!

The beaches are just amazing. Every time I went out, it was low tide, and the wide expanse of the beach and the reasonably calm ocean really relaxed me. The weather was great. Not too hot, nice and breezy, some overcast and one spectacular thunderstorm while we happened to be having a splendid dinner at a place called Truffles.

I also ventured in the (empty of guests) pool. The water was a few degrees above freezing. But...after you get in it feels better...at least, that's what this little girl told me. She reminded me of Bugs at that age. A real water bug, always in the pool, jumping, diving, somersaulting.
It was nice to let my vertebraes loosen up in the water.

There are about 240 restaurants on this island, and every day we tried a different place for breakfast or dinner.
Every place we ate (after our first experience) was great. Our favorite being a breakfast place called Stacks. There was a waiter there who had a routine that made us pee our pants laughing.
At first he sounded like one of those smartass waiters when he was taking another table's orders, but when we started actually listening, we realized this guy was hilarious.
I wish I could have recorded his flippy repartee.
Even Wheelie had tears in his eyes from laughing.
The one thing that I recall was he told this old couple next to us after they ordered (which took about 15 minutes): Don't get op, you all stay right there, we'll bring the food out to YOU!

I know.....you had to be there....

He also used the word "commingle" a few times, for some reason that really cracked Wheelie up...

I know.....you had to be there.

I did make a point of telling him that we appreciated his humor, and that he made us feel good.

So basically that's how we spent our days. Me walking on the beach, Wheelie reading or napping and listening to our live entertainment..

"...country roads....."

We meandered through a few little shopping areas, bought a tie dye t shirt for the little squirt. Found a real mall and a Belks and bought ourselves some T shirts and a few frilly things for me (Oh Gawd!!!)

It was SO good to be away from everything. So relaxing and so peaceful.

We tried our damnedest NOT to think about our life in Cartersville. We just went with the frigging flow and really enjoyed ourselves.

The beds at Holiday Inn are the bomb. I guess they now use these pillow top mattresses everywhere, and none of those sleazy velvety blankets and those horrid bedspreads with who-knows-what-kind-of dried-up-fluids on 'em, but nice new white synthetic down comforters and NICE linens. Crisp, clean, whiter than white high threadcount sheets. We slept like babies, except for the last night, when Wheelie could not get comfortable, and something upset my stomach and it took some doing to calm all that down.

As for the "accessible".....sigh.....they almost got it right....ALMOST....

I've said it before....I wish that they would ask a wheelchair bound person to design those bathrooms!!!

Our shower was roll-in...good....but...
The fold down seat was on one side, the faucet and shower out of reach on the opposite sight.

So I "helped" hehe...It felt like we were in a car wash, hosing him down....at least he got his back REALLY clean....

There was no counter space in that bathroom and we had to improvise using the ironing board for our "stuff"

The toilet was on the wrong side (for us) and it took some doing to adjust to the new way to get on the pot. Of course all the grab bars were horizontal (as opposed to vertical so you can actually haul yourself up, or at a 45 degree angle....)

Oh well, we made do, it had been a while since we showered together...

The trip back went well too. We hit Atlanta right before rush hour (on Friday no less!!) and we sailed though at a decent tempo. For those of you who don't know Atlanta, two major freeway "commingle" through town and it's a real bear to drive that part. Always insanely busy, fast, people driving like maniacs.

We got home to a very nice smelling house, and were welcomed by Ms. Boo-boo and her mom.

I kid you not, I think this child grew both in body AND attitude. When I asked Bugs how it "went" she rolled her eyes and slumped her shoulders, and just looked at me. *LOLOL*

Boo is developing her terrible two's attitude. She did learn to say 'thank you' and 'pwease' though, but when I asked how the potty training was going, Bugs answered: I don't have one...

Regarding the "daycare and the other stuff" issues she was supposed to take care of this week....well, we'll talk about that another time. (She did not find a daycare!!)

Needless to say we're babysitting tomorrow. Not a problem. Short day.

For now we're home, we're rested, we're feeling good.
I just balanced my checkbook and we're seriously screwed for the rest of the month, *LOL*
I hope that $250 check from Obama gets here soon.

SGMKJ!