Tuesday, July 31, 2007
- long drive, I hate driving more than 6 hours straight. Didn't they invent the airplane in the outer banks?
- two big sand dunes - made it pretty tough to get chairs, umbrellas, beach toys, cooler full of beer, etc. over the dunes.
- nothing around our house - we had a nice house on the ocean but there wasn't anything within 20 minutes.
- Baby Jack - Jack couldn't stand the heat so either Sarah or I pretty much had to be inside with him most of the time.
- Henry can't swim yet so we always had to watch him like a hawk.
- Pricey - for what we got, it was expensive.
And the good stuff:
- I read the new Harry Potter book and never knew the ending.
- I was on vacation so I could pretty much do what I want, other than the babysitting which Sarah more than shared.
- Beverages - seemed like I got my fill.
- Shrimp - a highlight of the food week.
- Friends - its nice going on vacation with friends that you've known a long time.
- Weather - we got really nice weather the whole week.
I've thought about this quite a bit and I think I've come to a conclusion. All in all, I wouldn't go back until the kids are older. Mike Horner made a good point, you only have about 15 annual vacations with your kids before they want to do something with their friends. I want to take the family out to the Grand Canyon, to New York, to San Diego, Europe, etc. and that doesn't always leave time for an "annual" trip to the beach. We already go to Florida every spring and I can see us doing that for the next ten years. And we have Buck Lake for free every year so that's another week. That leaves us with a great opportunity to do something fun/educational.
The Outer Banks are great and they are beautiful. It's a great place for adults to go to but I'm not sure its the greatest for kids. Conversely, Myrtle Beach is a great place for kids but probably not my favorite place in July.
I reserve the right to change my mind on this but for now, I'll err on the side of the kids next year.
