This year’s destination was Holden Beach and while that’s much closer than last year’s drive to the Florida Keys, we were still a bit late getting on the road. You’d think I’d be used to it, but I always misjudge the time required to get everything done and ready to go. When the whole family leaves home for a week there is a mountain of work to do. It makes you question whether the trip is worth the effort.
After a pre-trip lunch at Bojangle’s we hit the road. We took two cars since we had a mountain of stuff (we had to take linens, groceries, and beach toys) and would have five people on the way back. For the cost of one tank of gas, it wasn’t worth the pain of trying to cram everything into one car. As luck would have it, we hit a traffic jam before we even got to Clayton. There was a line of thunderstorms and that slowed everyone to a halt. This slow pace lasted about an hour, then things opened up and we were cruising.
I have to say that the drive to Holden Beach from Raleigh is a piece of cake. A day trip is within the realm of possibility. The real estate office was right where the bridge hits the island and our condo was just down the street. It took maybe ten minutes from the time we crossed the bridge until we were parked at the condo. We unloaded, looked over the place, then Maria and the kids went for a quick walk on the beach. I stayed behind since I was hot, sweaty, a little mad at Kinnamon for having a pre-teen attitude, and obsessed with finding the condo’s wifi password (which I sleuthed out with the help of Google and the use of Maria’s laptop to login to the router. Password is tater2lola3 by the way).
When they got back from their walk it was time for dinner. I have to put in a plug for Urbanspoon. The user reviews helped us avoid an obvious choice and pick the Provision Company. It doesn’t look like much, but it was great. The definition of casual and the shrimp was excellent. We’ll go again before the week is out. After dinner it was back to chores, this time at the Food Lion to stock up. Back to the condo, unload, make beds, shower, sleep
For Sunday, we decided to make our first day be a full beach day with all three meals at the condo. Kinnamon’s friend Alana arrived about noon. Pretty windy, but not too hot and the ocean was just right. Active enough to be fun, but you didn’t get beat to death.