You know. As a result of indecision and utter disregard of official vacation protocol (OVP), this year’s countdown was really pain! Per OVP, I started my texts exactly 30 days prior to our arrival, and before I knew it we had a drop out. I had to go into the official vacation communicator and change the distribution, one might think that would be an easy task, but let me tell you it took me hours to figure that out! To make matters even more difficult with about two weeks to go, I was informed that we had a group that was going to go down a couple days before the official date. This caused me to have two countdown dates, since I was giving the days, hours and seconds, this really caused me to do a significant amount of ciphering to include these renegades in the official vacation broadcast (OVB). Since this group refused to comply with the official vacation laws (OVL), as one might expect the order of life changed. This allowed another group made a decision that they would come down one day early! It was now requiring hours each day to ensure the official vacation countdown (OVC), met the high standards of the vacation protocol! Discombobulation was ensuing, and the OVC was getting so difficult I was getting blisters on my fingers! Well Group one made arrived, and just could not help but to tell the rest of us who did plan on following OVP  how nice it was, the weather was perfect and we could join in just by looking at the beach CAM! How sweet of them the rest of us followed OVP and they had the audacity to tell us to watch them on a web CAM! Then group two headed out early the day before the official date, also breaking OVP  and made it about 6 miles when the truck-ster blew a gasket. What a dilemma! After what seemed to be two weeks in the old truck-ster and OH the smell coming from the back seat the truck-ster pulled into a Charleston hotel!  The next morning group three headed to the airport bright and early on the official day decided that they really want to spend some quality time in our nation’s capital, once again breaking OVP.  They did make it on the official day, with only minutes to spare.  That group need to stop being so patriotic! From all accounts group four, left at the official time, and arrived in time for the official Saturday dinner at the official time, thus following OVP!

We all seemed to follow different paths to get there, some had a very difficult path to follow, while others journey was uneventful, but in the end we were all sitting on the beach on Sunday morning! Next time we need to ensure that the two drop outs get on the path, so they can follow in the footstep of those who made it to paradise! One final thought each year I hear the rumor that a couple other groups (THREE OF THEM and you know who you are) intend to enrich their lives by joining the intellectuals and one idiot on the beach, to that group of slackers all I can say is (I can’t say what I really mean but it has to do with a pot) yesterday is history and today is mystery!

Words of wisdom: One can perceive that it is easy for some and difficult for others. In the end it doesn’t matter when you get there all that a matter is that you get there.