We are back from Tybee and we had a great time.
Sunday we headed out after breakfast at The Cracker Barrel with my Mother-in-law. The ride was pretty uneventful and we made good time, getting to Savannah about 12:30 p.m. Check-in isn’t until 3 at the HoJo so we decided to kill some time on the Savannah Riverwalk. We got some treats at Savannah Candy Kitchen (go there and get the chocolate-covered pretzels, I’m serious) and had some lunch at Spanky’s just down the street. After that we had burned up enough time to head for Tybee.
We got to the hotel still a little early, but they let us check in early so everything was cool. We decide that it is waaaayyy too hot to hit up the beach and pool right away so those are crossed off the list right away. I wanted a new pair of swim trunks and we forgot our beach towels so shopping seemed like the thing to do.
I would just like to point out that this is the start of the man/woman/venus/mars section of vacation.
The shops we want to go to are approximately 200 feet from the hotel. At absolute most. Marilyn says that it is too hot to walk and wants to drive. 200 feet. I make the argument that by the time we load the kids into the car, drive there, park, and unload the kids we would be better off just walking. I don’t win the debate, though admittedly, I didn’t try real hard. Didn’t seem worth the effort.
So we drive 200 feetish. And pay the parking meter a dollar to park for one hour. That’s just insult to injury there. We go shopping.
I picked up a set of Corona swim trunks and 2 T-shirts, Emily gets a crocodile and a frog made out of some weird rubber that gives me the creeps when I squeeze them, Marilyn picks up a little dress. Jonathan was completely uninterested in the whole shopping thing.
Our parking hour is almost up and we have gotten a little peckish. So we talk about eating. Here is the deal though. The restaurants are actually farther away from the hotel in the same direction. But marilyn is starting to have buyer’s remorse about paying the parking meter a buck an hour when the car is only 200 feet from it’s free spot at the hotel.
Venus/mars again.
I think we’ve made a mistake by driving. But I think it is even sillier to get the kids back in the car, drive back to the hotel, get them out, then walk back past where we just were to walk twice as far past that. I’d rather pay another dollar. After you make the mistake, the conditions have changed and now you try to make the optimal decision on the new conditions. My thought is that paying another buck and going to dinner is optimal. Or if you have to get in the car, seeing as how we are are on a one way street that goes past the restaurant now, let’s just park in front of the restaurant and pay another buck. I didn’t win the debate, but again, I didn’t try real hard. I’m on vacation, I’m not there to argue over the logistics of eating dinner. That’s for home.
So we drive back to the hotel, get the kids out, walk past where we just were and walk twice that far past that. And eat dinner at Spanky’s. Yes, same place we ate in Savannah. Good stuff if a bit Applebee’sish.
We finish dinner and get the kids ready for the walk back and it starts raining. POURING, I should say. Jonathan is in the stroller, so he has his head covered. Marilyn has an umbrella so she is covered. I’m not made of sugar, so I really don’t care if I get wet, but Emily doesn’t want to walk and Marilyn can’t carry her and the umbrella at the same time.
Logistics like this are a biotch sometimes.
Emily ends up standing on the back axle of the stroller, holding onto the handle, with my shirt over her head. I’m still wearing my shirt now. I just look like I’m pregnant with Emily’s head. So that’s how we walk back in the rain.
I was wearing denim shorts so it didn’t take long for them to become thoroughly soaked and begin to want to slide down my hips. Denim gets heavy when it is wet, you know.
So get you a good mental picture of this: Me pushing a baby stroller, Emily in front of me on the stroller’s back axle with her head under my shirt. I can’t go very far back because I will pull her head back, but I can’t get really close because she is between me and the stroller. My shorts are trying to slide off my hips so I have to keep my legs spread apart to halt the slide. This is making me waddle since my feet are wider than my shoulders at this point. It’s raining like hell.
At some point in the proceedings, Marilyn starts laughing at me. I can only imagine the look on my face as all this is going on. In other circumstances I might have gotten pissed. But I honestly had to admit that this had become a comedy of errors. That and my wife is so beautiful that it is almost impossible to be mad at her when she smiles.
We stopped under a store awning and had a good laugh about the whole deal and then I duck walked my kids back to the hotel to dry off.
At this point, we are only two, maybe three, hours into Tybee. I will tell you about the rest tomorrow.