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or: notes from a small island.We have returned from vacation and everyone has survived, although the animals avenged our cruel desertion by tearing an entire bale of Charmin from Costco into teeny tiny pieces, and it doesn't look like you folks out in the blogosphere behaved much better. Anyhow, it was a fantastic time and I know you're drooling for details, and I'm happy to oblige, but I only have so long before the hubster comes home for dinner and I have to figure out how to cook a flounder of dubious freshness. So here's the important stuff.
At first we weren't sure about transportation. Do we take the Matrix. Do we take the Solara convertible? Do we take both? Do we take both and the boat? Do we take the Matrix and the boat? Do we not take the boat?
Mr. Mean Teacher doesn't have a lot of patience for small, whiny, crying children and can be a real pill himself on long drives. And I indulge in a loathing for that boat that most women reserve for their husband's mistress. So my vote was two cars, no boat.
So we took the Matrix and the boat.
The drive up was eight and a half hours. All three of my boys were angels for eight and pretty testy for the last thirty minutes, which, all things considered, was phenomenal. And I learned how to drive with a boat trailer on my ass end, which wasn't as awful as I had been secretly hoping.
Chincoteague Island, Virginia, which is where we were, is FANTASTIC. Go now. Seriously. Our rental was brand-new and FANTASTIC. The stores are adorable and the prices are appallingly reasonable (board shorts: $10.00, two single-serves and a sundae and a lemonade at Mr. Whippy: $7.50, leather bag of silly polished rocks: $3.99. Hell, even gas was 20 cents cheaper per gallon than at home). The place is covered in little gingerbreaded victorian houses, and the famous wild ponies are on the next island over.
Mr. Mean Teacher caught endless fish, and thus was the happiest man alive. Booger got to play with the shockingly badly-behaved children of our friends with whom we were sharing the house and had a wonderful time. He and I were in agreement that the beach would be perfect if they just got rid of all that goddamned sand. There were pony rides and endless ice-cream runs and the rental of a very silly scooter.
By Tuesday morning I was even willing to admit that bringing the stupid boat wasn't such a horrible idea, since it had been really easy to get ramp access and Mr. Mean Teacher had been fishing up a storm. That, of course, was when we lost The Part.
See, if you use your boat in the ocean, apparently it is advisable to take it apart and rinse it off real good afterward. It is not, however, advisable to do this in the dark. Over sand. And so we had my husband spending an entire morning crawling around in the sand, swearing up and down that if that part was not located, he was GOING HOME. Meanwhile, I swung over to the chamber of commerce, made a few phone calls, drove to Maryland and got a replacement Part for $4.80 (plus the roughly $6 I had to spend on gas -- but the aggravation? Fucking priceless.) And that was how I rescued my summer vacation.
But that was the only incident of note, and was survived in the end with very little horribleness on anyone's part. Nobody got sick. Nobody got hurt.
Oh, the food did suck. Go to Chincoteague, but bring a cooler full of your own grub.
Flounder calls. More later.