Travel to Kiawah (Part One)

To welcome in spring, 6 is thinking that is was about time that we started to blog about summer vacation. This blog 6 is going to take a trip back in history, to the first year our family joined the crew in Kiawah. To the best of my recollection it was in 2004, when the 6’s barged in and destroyed the calm serine, vacation of the original crew. To those in the original group,  6 say’s thank you and to those who say we destroyed it for them, well 6 says “get over it”, we are here.

The tale begins on a hot humid Friday night, at dinner 6 laid out the ground rules for the vacation. As you all know 6 does not have many rules but the ones that he has are critical for the success of any vacation. (Remember this) Here were my ground rules:  (1) 6 needed help putting the roof carrier on the new truckster,  (2)  all bags have to be at the front door by NLT 8:00 pm EST, (3) food for the trip must be in the cooler and in the fridge by 9:00 PM EST,( 4) 6 needs so help packing the truckster, (5) we are leaving at 7:00 AM EST. Sounds simple straight forward easy right!  Dinner was over and all cleaned up, so it was time to start ground rule (1). 6 went upstairs to see if he could get a volunteer to help with the roof carrier, 61,62, 63 said that they would be right down to help. 6 went outside to wait, and wait, and wait, and then 6 realized that the crew was not going to arrive anytime soon. (Notice I did not wait for 6A) so 6 being the resourceful person did it himself! 6 completed that task without too much damage, just a dent in the roof, and a broken heart, and yet still no sign of the crew. Now it was time to carefully place our precious beach cargo into the carrier. 6 started with a complete set of golf clubs, then 5 spanking new beach chairs, 6 continued:  3 bogie boards, 20 beach towels, 25 bathing suits, 11 tubes/can of sun lotion, 2 pair of tennis shoes, two pairs of flip/flops, 3 bags of food, and 6’s (6 follows the rules) suitcase. One may ask how 6 got all of that in there, and that is a logical question, with no logical answer, all 6 knew was that to carrier had a max weight of 100 lbs, my estimate was we had at least twice that weight in there. 6 stood back and admired that little bit of mastery while enjoying another glass of HMR Rex. It was now getting dark, so the innocence in me, decided to look near the front door to see if by chance, possibly, maybe there was at least one lonely suitcase ready to be packed. 6 was once again disappointed with what he found.  Being a resourceful person 6 proceeded to ground rule (3) and started to make some sandmiches, cut some cheese, got some fruit, etc.. packed the beach cooler, and then into the fridge.  Ground rule 1 and 3 were completed, which only left ground rule 2, 4, and 5. It was well past 9:00 pm at this point so 6 went to check on how everyone was coming with their packing. Can you guess what I saw… TV’s, and cloths all over the place, and thus came to the conclusion that 2,4 and 5 we never going to get completed, so all I could do was drink some more HMR Rex and hit the hay, after all I had a 10 hour drive ahead of me.  After a glass or two of the HMR Rex, it was time. 6 cleared him a place on the bed, and called it a day!   That was not going to work; there was packing to do, and TV to be watched. So 6 just smiled and counted the revolutions on the ceiling fan. Soon enough, the lights and TV’s went off, and the backs were put on the floor. 6’s eyes closed and fell into a deep sleep just dreaming of all the new adventures that would face us in a place called Kiawah. Well it could not be that easy, because 6 was awakened to the sound of the vacuum running, I woke up out of a sound sleep and to my surprise; 6 was told that now it was time to clean the house. Needless to say I lay in bed and watched the clock change every minute until the sun came up. I had no sleep, the car was not packed and 6 was the only one in the house who worked all week! Bingo!!!!!To be continued……

Words of wisdom: sometimes we talk way to much, and hear too much, but don't listen to the words being spoken

Action for all

Just got an email from beachwalker.. This is their 30 year anniversary, so they are offering a 30% discount on rentals for the next 30 hours! Let’s do a reality check on this one, first of all, you cannot figure out how to use it, second, I have already made my reservations, third, do they really expect that they are giving you the discount, or are the owners of the properties giving you the discount. I guess that is real nice of them to do that for us! They did the same thing last year so I gave them a call, and wanted to cancel my reservations, and re-book the same condo, using their “discount” and they told me that I could not do that! So this year expect a bunch of bottom feeders, surrounding us on the beach, what fun! What we will have is deeper holes on the beach, more tents, no respect of my personal boundaries, and of course gabby, cigar smoking, beer guzzling, shovel toten red necks.. on second thought that may not be too bad!  Granny gets on the truck!  The other day when it was freezing out, and the snow was coming down in buckets, I put my superior intelligence to work and came up with a great idea to solve two major issues. Here is the problem..How do you reduce the frantic activity of last minute packing? I know that some of you will say that this is not an issue; because, “I know exactly what I need and it only takes 10 minutes to pack my suitcase” What kind of fool do you take me for, it takes longer than 10 minutes to find your suitcase! Here is my idea, pack now, then you will be ready,(problem one solved) and the best part is you won’t be taking up valuable room in your dresser or closet(problem two solved)!

Since this Monday is St. Patrick’s day, I want all of you to remember your heritage (even if you are not Irish) and dress in green, drink green beer, eat some corn beef and cabbage, and listen to some fine Irish music! Most important since 6 consider himself an intellectual traditionalist, at 8:00 pm on Saturday March 15^th each and every one of us must drink a shot of Jack! There are no exceptions to this! It does not matter if you like whiskey or not, it must be done! Black label is preferred, but Gentleman jack is acceptable, and if you have to do Jim Beam, that will work as well.

 Words of Wisdom: For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and return not thither but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

have we seen the end of the snow?

Well as time goes on, we all get a little bit older, and I am sure some people even get a little wiser! Happy birthday!

There are times when 6 thinks this winter will never get over, but just as everything winter also brings us a different way to look at life. If you think about nature, everything is soft and rounded with very few things with hard edges. Think about the sand on the beach vs. the hard asphalt we have to cross to get to the beach, or the soft curves of the trees, that we turn into wood to tear our poor feet apart as we walk on the boardwalk to the beach. The winter brings snow that covers and thus transforms the sharp hard man made objects into soft rounded with no edges just like life intends. We as humans tend to make everything to hard, thus cutting us at every corner, if our decisions are definitive, (yes means yes and no means no) just as the snow falls and makes the hard soft, and sharp rounded, we will stay on the correct path. For example:  Did you ever wonder why 6 and company go to the same spot for vacation every year? 6 gets the same condo, 6 sits on the same grains of sand, 6 stops at the pig, 6 makes the  same dinner, 6 brings the same wine, 6 uses the same chairs, 6 wears the same shades, 6 wares the same hat, 6 drives the same car, 6 leaves at the same time, etc. well 6 is sure that you have not, so once again he will use his superior intelligence and explain it to the common folks. It’s all about life. Life you say, well yes it is. I am sure that 21 could answer this question, but how many miles of beach do you think there is in the world, I tell you, a butt load. Why do we drive or fly hundreds of miles to go there when 6 could be to the same ocean in less than 100 miles? Why do we go at the absolute hottest time of the year? Why do we go to a place that at 7:00 at night they roll up the sidewalks? Why do we go to a place where we cannot bring bottles to the beach, or grill, or have a bon fire, or feed the poor helpless gators, or play loud music, or put your beach towels out on the deck railing to dry, or drive faster than 30 MPH, or use the pools, or dig big holes in the beach?   We could go anyplace, where we can do whatever we want! Are we just creatures of habit, I don’t think so. Are we lazy slugs, well maybe but 6 sure is not! Are we suffering from a lack of adventure, nope! Do we like the hot dirty water, lack of waves, gators, long walk to the beach, people on the beach with no respect for my space, palmetto bugs, and slow people? Then what is it? The answer to this question is quite simple. Once again, 6 does not expect the common people or the idiot to understand so let me explain. Stop and think about all of the crazy stuff that is going on in the world today. Why does Clark put up with all the antics in all of his vacation movies? Why do the Robertson’s sit down and break bread, after a long day of arguments? Why does Andy, sit out on the front porch with his guitar after a long day of fighting crime? Why does Lionel never move out of Fred’s house? Why doesn’t Jed tell Granny, Jethro, and Elli, to head back to the hills? Why does little Joe never get married? Why does Matt put his life on the line week after week for miss kitty? Have you figured it out yet? Well if not let’s look at some more… Why did Kim name her kid North West? Why do 67% of NBA players, 58% of football players go bankrupt 5 years after they retire?  Why is the View on TV? Why is Opra still telling the “Fib” about giving those cars away on Christmas? Why does Tiger drop out of a golf tournament on the final round? Why does A-rod take steroids? Why do running backs look like bobble heads after they get a first down? Why do members of congress stay in office for 50 years? Why is Miley, Miley and Justin, Justin?     Well did you get it yet?

Words of wisdom: Family is the glue that bonds society, Narcissism dissipates that bond.