Road Trip!

So we finished off the last leg of the journey down to NC today. But apparently we couldn't actually start the trip without stopping by Starbucks. It's really sad, but the kids have become addicted to Starbucks. Last night after the racing and boats at the Putt Putt place, both kids were whining about how thirsty they were and that they "needed" to by Starbucks. To heck with that, I told them they could just hang on until we got to the restaurant.


Once we were on the road the trip took about three hours driving, a total of almost four hours if you include the time we stopped off to grab a bite to eat for lunch. There was no traffic to speak of, and we didn't even slow down on I64 before the exit for the tunnel road (in the past usually that backs up 5 to 10 miles). The only place we ran into a backup was picking up the key at the rental management place, but even that wasn't too long. In fact, the worst thing about the whole trip was the sheer number of kid songs we ended up hearing over the course of the trip.


The house is more than adequate and much larger than what we need for just the four of us. There are four bedrooms in the main part of the house with a total of five beds, then another bedroom in the 'addition' with 2 sets of bunk beds. Now the 'addition' is just odd. The whole basement of the house (which consists of a bed room, living room with a TV, refrigerator, microwave, sink, washing machine and dryer and a bathroom) is completely separate from the rest of the house. The only way to get to it is to go outside and then into the door into that area. It's very odd and the first house I've ever stayed in down here that has anything like that. And it's more than a bit annoying since that's where I would have liked to have set up the Wii, but since it's completely separate we wouldn't feel comfortable having the kids down there where we couldn't hear them. So for the most part we're just not going to use that whole section of the house (except the washer and dryer). So if anyone wants to come hang out, there's room we aren't using.

Anyway, once we were all unpacked we headed up to Harris Teeter to grab some food for the coming week. And man did we spend a lot at the store. I'm convinced that Harris Teeter is one of these upscale grocery stores where you pay more for not a lot of extra thrills. Wegman's is a much better value in my opinion (Wegman's has really won me over since they showed up in the DC area). Alas, there's no Wegman's down where. Just Food Lion and now Harris Teeter. And we figured Food Lion wouldn't carry some of the specialty stuff we wanted to get for Catherine (I should add that Harris Teeter didn't end up carrying it either). But after this visit I think Harris Teeter much be one of the world's most expensive grocery stores. Orange juice is a full $1.50 higher priced than it is at Wegmans back home. In fact, just about everything seemed to be at least a $1 higher priced.




Once we returned from grocery shopping, we decided to hit the pool since we didn't think we would have time to go to the beach and get back and have dinner at a reasonable time. Luckily the house has a pool and a hot tub (or a hot pool as the kids refer to it). The pool is advertised on the web site as (and I'm not making this up) "Large swimming pool: It is much larger than the majority of private pools on the island." Now after having seen this pool, I have to wonder how that phrase can be spun to be true. Much larger than the majority doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room. Don't get me wrong, the pool size is fine for what we plan on using it for. I mean, we have a pool at home, we didn't come to the beach based on the idea of having a pool. But still, as you can see from the photo, you can actually stand up in the 'deep' end (I think it's 5 and a half feet deep in the middle of the deep section).


I tried going and getting a sunset shot tonight, but nature wasn't cooperating. Lots of low clouds on the horizon killed any chance of getting decent picture. But then the jet trails going across the sky wouldn't have helped even if the weather had been accommodating.


So the house we're in a fair distance from the actual ocean, but the house has no bikes. Last year we were able to get into a routine of driving the kids down to the beach, then I would drive back to the house and bike to the beach (and reverse the process to come home). Guess we're all hoofin' it this year though.