Vacation - A time to relax?

We left Friday morning for our family vacation to Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina.

We stopped for a long lunch at a business acquaintance's vacation house of my husband's in Maryland. They have a beautiful large house with a barn and stables for two horses and at least seven antique carriages. Plus a boat load of land all nestled on an inlet of the Chesapeake Bay.

We continued on and crossed the Chesapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel for a mere $12.00. We stopped off at the pier and visitor's center for a slower look see at the Bay.

As we mosied on our way, we thought we might travel at least to Virginia and settled on Elizabeth City for our overnight destination. I have a few things to say about that town. The person who put up all the route signs needs to try to follow them first, before letting the general public try it. The managers of Wendy's need to get their act together and not let the drive-up window take twenty minutes when it is only five cars long and to give out spoons when people order chili. All the hotels and motels need to have more non-smoking rooms.

We finally just got out of that town. I think in all we tried probably eight motel/hotels before we rested at a Super Eight several towns down the road. It was a very nice place, and they had a continental breakfast that didn't consist of donuts and coffee.

The house we rented didn't bring up tons of warm fuzzies either. The owners opted not to have the realtor spring clean, so all the insects that climbed behind furniture and under beds than died were still there, dust was a little thick, it was not up to our expectations. The people who come into clean between renters did their jobs, since they are not expected and don't have time to spring clean each Saturday. It was the owners. And have you ever tried to relax, sit and enjoy yourself on vinyl furniture in varying degrees of disrepair? There were two chairs and three couches from which you could pick.

The house had seven bedrooms and four bathrooms and claimed to accommodate 20 people. The actual number of beds slept 19. They possibly were counting the roll away cot in the laundry area, but we didn't attempt to use it after seeing the condition of the place. Thy also advertised a sleeper sofa, but that was scary too. I can say that the price probably reflected the condition of the house.

There are other things I can go on about, but I will let it go.