As usual no matter where I go I am awake several hours before anyone else. I tossed and turned until about 2AM but did manage to sleep until 8, which is quite late for me. The girls are awake alreasy as well and I have been trying to keep them quiet so as not to wake up the tribe here. Once they get started they don’t shut up and the peace and quiet is nice. Altogether there are about six kids here, two of which are mine.
Yesterday we drove on to the island and spent the great majority of the day at the beach. I have quite a nice sunburn, maybe I can add to it today. My original plans were to go to Savannah today and then spend tomorrow back at the beach but those may have changed on me. I will have to wait and see what everyone else wants to do I suppose.
After the beach we went back to the Art Cafe, which is our friend’s shop, and let the girls paint for awhile and the wife and I slipped away for a coffee at Java Joes, which has the best coffee on the island aside from Starbucks and that’s only because I am like a crack addict when it comes to Starbucks.
Once Niqui’s eldest daughter arrived we drove to the Salty Dog because no trip to Hilton Head is complete without a trip to the Salty Dog. It’s actually a pretty cool place. It is a collection of several restaurants and an outside bar on the marina, with live music. Children are extremely welcome, thus the reason for the trip. Anywhere that I can have several beers while my children act like idiots is good. Normally restaurants kick you out for that type of behavior. I had also picked it because V-Man was supposed to attend, but he apparently found that he was enjoying trashing my house so much that he came up with some lame story about a check engine light. Check engine light my ass (it still aches, thanks V-man).
As soon as we got there of course it started raining but we hung in there for awhile. It fucking poured for some time and right about the time it started clearing up a bit everyone decided that it was time to go. They were all wet and uncomfortable and wanted to leave. You wouldn’t think they were from England the way a little water scared them 🙂 Actually only the mother and oldest child is from England, the rest were born here. I got my panties a bit in a wad about having to leave, but they were uncomfortable and tired after having been at the beach all day so it wasn’t without good reason that they wanted to leave. I just want to get the most out of my first vacation out of town since Disney in 2005 other than going to Helen for the weekend last year. This looks to be my only real vacation for this year as well.
I will probably go along with whatever plans the wife and her friend come up with today as this fall her friend and the kids are moving to Cyprus and it is unlikely that we will see them again anytime soon. I don’t particularly want to be the turd in the punchbowl just because I am on vacation. I think at some point the girls and I will drive in to the island though and do something just for the family. I have a three week pass to get into Sea Pines so might as well get some use out of it.
For those that don’t know, Hilton Head is divided into several different areas. Some of it is for the plebes and rednecks that live there like you and I, but quite a bit of it is gated communities. During business hours you can get in, but you have to pay. Just to get into the South Beach area which is in the Sea Pines community, and where the Salty Dog and the lighthouse are, is $5. Not much, but if you are making more than one sightseeing trip it can start getting expensive.
Just checked the weather and it looks like it’s got about a 40% chance of rain with scattered thunderstorms so it shouldn’t be too bad today whatever we do. I can only hope that I am getting some rain back at the house. I went ahead and watered my tomatoes and stuff at the house before we left and hopefully they won’t all be dead by the time we get back on Tuesday.
I told the wife yesterday that I didn’t like this laptop thing but I am starting to get used to it and if the keyboard would act right and I could configure it the way that I like I could probably get used to it pretty quickly. It’s got a nice big widescreen and I am able to set the resolution to a nice big size which I prefer.
I am sure that I will get the chance to post at least a couple of pics later today and maybe something from the iPaq as well, but this is about it today otherwise. Don’t know if any of my guests will stop by to abuse me today or not, but if so it’s bound to be fun…