So at least two good things happened on vacation 1) I survived the flight to the Atlanta, and 2) I survived the flight back to Newark. Yay! I’m alive – even with all the red lasers being aimed at the pilots coming in on midnight flights like ours to Newark – so you know, double happy. Of course, vacation was wonderful on many levels, but as the daughter of a pilot, I’m kind of uber aware of the perils of flying. And, considering good ole’ dad was the first guy to survive a backseat ejection out of an S3-Viking into the shark-infested waters of the Pacific Ocean, I figure he knows a little on the subject. As you can imagine, I much prefer road trips and holding it for hours, to security lines and tiny plane toilets. Give me a gas station bathroom any day!
But I did get a road trip out of it. We picked up the grandparents and a rental van at the airport and hightailed it to the panhandle of Florida. Our destination was a beautiful spot called Santa Rosa Beach on 30A (which all Southerners know about. Just ask one.) So ensued 7 days of … thunderstorms! At least that’s what the forecast said. I did spend Monday (#PitchWars day people) huddled under a blanket, working on my query and first chapter just one more time, before submitting them to the contest. It was storming that day, which was perfect. No guilt for this mamma bear.
We did get a few showers throughout the vacay, but the rest of the week was spent on the beach or in the pool relaxing (and checking the #PitchWars Twitter feed – sometimes surreptitiously, other times not so much). This brings me to good thing 3) No one got eaten by a shark, although PBS assures me they were swimming unseen all around us. However nearly all of us were stung by a jelly fish. And while I’m glad I didn’t get kissed by a shark, those jellies are brutal lovers too.
So, armed with a new tan and several jelly fish hickeys, we packed our bags, loosened our belts (thank you seafood restaurant paradise), and hopped a midnight flight home. Road weary and bleary eyed, we found our car, battery dead, in the garage. Disaster averted, a nice man came in 2 minutes and got us going. Home at 3 am, one child now definitely ill with a fever, we return to ordinary.
Have pen. Will fly. 