Beach Day!

Amist all the craziness of moving into the trailer and getting the house ready for final inspection, we took a bit of a vacation. Our friends Ashely and Josh planned their wedding on a Thursday on the beach. That is a 5 hour drive on a weekday. A few months ago I was super excited to go to their wedding and the beach, but as the time got closer I started to stress. Usually when Meric and I go out of town, we just leave the dogs at home and have somebody come by the house a couple of times a day to let them in or out. However, in the trailer they can't just be let out. They need to be put on leashes and walked to the dog park 2-3 times a day. With my big and energetic beasties that is no easy task. We still have the house, but I didn't really want to leave the dogs there. Since we moved into the trailer the dogs only went to back to the house once. It is just easier to clean up the dog hair if more isn't being left and also I wanted the yard to get the chance to recover from having the dogs there for 2 years. So the only other option was to take them with us. Not a big deal except that a lot of hotels have pet restrictions. There aren't too many places that let you have 3 dogs over 50 lbs and then let you leave them alone in the room. With everything going on with the move it wasn't until the Saturday before the wedding that I started looking around for a room. I called a couple of places, got their voice mail, and left messages. On Monday one place called back. The owner sounded really nice and told me it was only a $15 fee when I told him we had 3 dogs. I cringed a little when he asked what kind they were and I told him they were all over 50 lbs. His reply of "oh thats no problem" was music to my ears. He told me they weren't a fancy place, just a ma and pop type motel.



My lesson in why not to grab a retractable leash



When Meric called Wednesday to let me know he was coming home from work I took the dogs out for one last walk and then "planned" to pack the car for the trip. I say "planned" because when I took the dogs out (all on retractable leashes) at one point a little dog came running toward us and Lucy took off to greet the dog. Holding 3 leashes I instinctively reach out and grabbed the leash instead of pushing the button on the leash to stop her. After getting the dogs under control I realized that my hand hurt. Meric came home to no dinner ready, no car packed and my hand in cold water. Meric did a little bit of wound care and we ate dinner, packed the car and hit the road.

Me and the dogs in the ocean

We made good time and arrived at our motel around 10:30 pm. The room itself was pretty small but I loved it because every room had a screened in porch. It was nice to be able to sit outside and not worry about the dogs being on leashes. First thing Thursday morning we headed to the beach. With it being before 11 am and in the "off season" the beach was pretty much deserted. We walked the dogs a little way and then let them off their leashes. They loved the beach! Lucy and Jasper would head toward the water but then run when the waves came in. Emmy on the other hand let those waves hit her and was completely soaked in no time. Lucy and Jasper only got wet when they followed me into the water. At one point, chasing a seagull, Emmy went into the ocean kind of far and had to swim back a little. Meric and I would run up and down the beach letting the dogs chase us back and forth, they loved it! I think Emmy and I agree that we could just live on the ocean forever. Another beautiful thing about the screened in porch was that we didn't have to worry about wet dogs in the room. After the beach we explored town a little. We got fudge at a candy shop (I got Heavenly Goo. Chocolate, peanut butter and carmel. YUM!) and calzones for lunch. We took them back to our room and sat on the porch, eating lunch and enjoying the ocean air.  We then got ready and went to the wedding. It took place on the beach on the site of an old light house. The wedding was nice and I was glad we went because not too many people were there. A lot of people that had said they were coming cancelled at the last minute and I was glad we could be there to support Ashely and Josh. One thing I had worried about with leaving the dogs in the room alone was that they would bark a lot and disturb the other guests. When we got back from the wedding we took the dogs out to go pee. While we were outside, a group of people including the owner came out of one of the rooms and the dogs started barking. We were hushing the dogs when the owner said "oh let them bark". He then asked if we took them to the wedding with us because they didn't make a sound the entire time we were gone. That made me so happy to hear. The rooms weren't super fancy but if we are ever to go back to the Cape Hatteras area, I will definitely stay there again. The porches made it nice to dry off and enjoy the outside with the dogs and the owner's laid back attitude was perfect for a nice vacation. The next morning we hit the beach one more time before eating lunch and heading out.



Earthen fort on Roanoke Island

  

Stage for the play "Lost Colony"


 

One of the bridges on the drive home



On the way home we stopped by Roanoke Island and visitied the Lost Colony. The drive back was beautiful. On the way there it had been mostly dark, so it was nice to see the scenary on the way back. Originally we had planned to drive out Thursday morning and come back Saturday, but then we changed it to Wednesday night to Friday. I am so glad we did for 2 reasons: 1. We were able to meet up with a guy who bought our bedroom set Friday night. The bedroom set was a big item we still needed to sell and he actually paid what we asked for it. 2. On Saturday, the day we originally were going to drive home, tornados tore through the area. The storm's path was pretty much the way we would have been driving home. At the house and trailer we only got a little rain and some strong winds, but not too far from the house was some major damage. Some houses were destroyed and tons of trees knocked down all over the place. (Tiffany would say it was a weird time for people to be cutting down trees!)



Over all it was a great vacation and I was able to relax. There has been so much to do I haven't been able to relax for about 2 months. I wasn't looking forward to having to take time off, but I am so glad we did. I wasn't sure about taking the dogs, but they loved the beach and I enjoyed it more because they were there. We also learned a few things. On the drive down we saw a couple of interesting signs. You know the deer crossing signs? Well they have red wolves crossing and watch out for bears signs. When I think of the beach I don't think of bears and wolves, but apparently they have a lot of them. The other thing we learned was that we don't actually know where the lost colony of Roanoke was before they got lost. We know it was the end of Roanoke Island, but not the exact location. When we went to visit the sight, it was the general area. For some reason I was expecting to see actual ruins or "on this sight this happened" type stuff, but it was more of a "in this area somewhere" and a stage for the play "Lost Colony" that they put on there. They have been putting on the play for decades and it is actually where Andy Griffith got his start. The things you learn.