Summer Vacation 2022

I would like to preface this entry with a quick notation that it’s supposed to be funny. I know how fortunate I am and I am very grateful.

Last summer, we started thinking about where we might like to retire if we were to leave Austin. We rented a house in Asheville, NC for a month, put the girls in the car, and drove east. The trip gave us a lot of information. Asheville is NOT Austin 25 years ago and it’s a little warm. While there, I watched a lot of the Hallmark channel because I have insomnia and there’s not a lot on at 3:00 am. I know, surprise, surprise. They kept showing commercials for a series they have called Chesapeake Shores. Now, I never actually watched the show because I only like the mysteries, but the scenery was so idyllic that I googled Chesapeake and found Chesapeake Beach in Maryland. That was where we needed to be! It was close to Annapolis so we started looking at places for this summer in the area. Now, because of our two precious angels, we require a yard. We looked and looked and found the perfect house in Edgewater, MD. It was very close to Annapolis and had an enormous yard for the girls, plus a 26-acre park adjacent to the property, and a beach very close by. The photos were charming and the place had terrific reviews.

We decided to make the drive in three days. We stayed in Memphis the first night. It was very hot and humid, but we walked down Beale Street and part of downtown. It seems to be a fun area, but it was just a stopover. We’ve stayed at the Arrive Hotel there twice now and it’s super cool. Probably too hip for us, but we like it and they take dogs. The second night, we stayed in Rocky Mount, VA at the Early Inn at the Grove. Peculiar place, but 10 acres and we were the only people staying there. We took the girls for a walk and could hear a march going on. Because we passed a Trump store on the way there, we assumed it was a Trump march of some sort. Instead, we were most pleasantly surprised that it was a large group of young women with signs chanting about their right to reproductive freedom. This is not meant to be a political post and I don’t want to offend anyone so I’m not going to go into a long tirade about the reversal of Roe vs. Wade. Suffice to say, it just really warmed my heart to see these ladies, and the many men supporting them, expressing their first amendment rights about something that is passionate to them.

We left early Tuesday and got to the rental house in Edgewater about 3:00. Bill told me this later, he was very disappointed when he turned into the neighborhood. It was pretty shitty. I think it was raining so I don’t remember having thoughts about it. It was an odd neighborhood. Some of the houses were million-dollar homes on the water and some of the houses were…let’s just say not that. One house had every resin statuette you can imagine in the front yard. A family of deer, gnomes, birds, mushrooms, an enormous cow. It was a mish mash of beach kitsch people and upscale boat people. Our house was on an enormous lot. I was glad to get there and settle in. The front was lovely, hydrangea bushes everywhere. A huge lawn for the girls, entirely fenced in. A large deck with covered furniture. I could imagine us sitting outside with the girls once it stopped raining.

Now, we both thought we had read the house description pretty carefully and we definitely reviewed the photos several times. I’m not going to say we didn’t get the house that we rented, but there were possibly some omissions that might have been important for us to know. The owner was a very sweet woman and she answered all of our questions so I hate to complain, but this place wasn’t cheap. The first thing I noticed was there was no closet in the master bedroom. Or rather there was a closet, but it was locked up with a bike chain and it had all of her stuff in it. I get that some owners do that. But then the closet next to the master bedroom was also locked up. There were two small closets in the other two bedrooms. We each used one. The description said the house slept seven. There was a queen-sized bed shoved into the master. Bill kept banging his knees into it because it was so close to the walls on both sides that we had to sort of squeeze ourselves into bed each night. The other two bedrooms had full sized beds. Full sized beds! So where are these seven people sleeping? To be fair, there was no mention of the size of the beds so we were going off of the pictures, which of course can be deceptive.

I always check out the TVs first because they can be complicated and I want to make sure when I’m awake at 2:30 am, I’m not stuck with only Fox News and Little House on the Prairie. I hate Little House on the Prairie. They always seemed so miserable. Honestly, I think it’s because there were no TVs. After a call to the owner, we got everything set up and probably had 1000 channels of which we only watched three. While the owner was on the phone, she mentioned the large jacuzzi tub in the master bath. She said there was something wrong with it and if we got even a drop of water in one of the jets, it would go into some sort of autoclean mode that sounds like an airplane for like 30 minutes. So no jacuzzi tub for us.

We let the girls out into the backyard and Grace was immediately attracted to the koi pond. She’s a water dog. She hopped right in. Yikes! This was going to be a problem. Until the following day, when we were feeding the fish and one of them jumped up and scared the living shit out of her. After that, no problem with the koi pond. The girls loved the yard. It was enormous and had actual grass. We have the xeriscape thing at home and they love grass. They ran and ran and rolled over and over and over. I was a little disappointed because the house pictures showed an enormous Connect Four game in the yard and I really wanted to see it. Nowhere to be found. They did have a giant checkers board, but that wasn’t as exciting. It rained most of the trip so we never did get to use any of the deck furniture. We never even took the covers off. Besides the rain, the mosquitoes were ridiculous so outside wasn’t that fun for us. But the girls loved it.

Now the “park” next to the house was really right next to the house. It was actually more of a rundown school yard with a football field, two or three baseball fields and a soccer field. There was sort of a paved track around the whole thing, but a lot of it was just mud from all the rain. We still used it pretty regularly. It was hot and humid there, but nothing like Texas right now so it seemed like a slight reprieve.

We couldn’t wait to see downtown Annapolis so I think we went the day after we got there. We took the girls, of course, and they were the stars of the show. Annapolis is very dog friendly. Water bowls and biscuits at every shop. I had read about Salty Paws, an ice cream shop for dogs so we went there first. Millie had maple bacon and Grace had peanut butter. I would have had pictures, but they devoured it so quickly that they didn’t leave me much time. Main Street was very sweet. The Naval Academy was right at the end of the street. A lot of nautical themed stuff. The capitol building was under construction, but wow, talk about history.

Early in the trip, I got sick. I don’t get sick, but I was sick sick. Bill drove me to the ER on Saturday I think, I don’t even remember. It was not Covid. After two hours in the waiting room, Bill asked them how much longer. It was 8:30 am and they said they might get some doctors in by 9:00 and some people had been waiting six hours. Nope. I’d rather just puke at the house. I slept the entire day and was tired, but better the next day.

We drove to Chesapeake Beach and it really is cute. Boardwalks and little private beaches. Lots of people out and about. Everyone loved the girls. I didn’t feel that great so we didn’t stay long, but we did plan to come back.

We like to cook when we go on vacation and while the house description didn’t mention a chef’s kitchen, we kind of just assumed there would be everything needed to cook and consume food. Mental note for next time, look for “chef’s kitchen” in house description. Really awful cookware, chipped and mismatched plates, no ladle, no measuring spoons, dull knives, glass-top stove (I’m sorry if you like them, but they are crap), only two large drinking glasses, ice-maker that sounded like it was making ice, but it never made any ice, really old coffee maker that only brewed two cups of bad coffee (I guess I couldn’t figure out the amount of coffee to use so I gave up after the second day), a fridge with a note on it that said to be sure to shut the fridge doors because usually fridge doors just close, but there was some problem with it and you had to manually make sure each door closed and stayed closed. And enormous spoons. Why only giant spoons? Why would you not have normal, human sized spoons in a house?

Besides the kitchen and closet situation, there was a drip in the guest bathtub that we could not stop. The house photos had advertised an espresso bar in the master bedroom, but that had been replaced by a bowl of Hershey’s kisses and a carafe of water. Not quite the same. There was a note on the master bathroom mirror that said the vanity counter was made of wood so we needed to make sure we wiped up any water that splashed on it or it would stain. OK who makes bathroom sink countertops out of wood? And I don’t know about you, but the sinks themselves were small and I’m going to be splashing a lot of water on that flipping vanity. We asked for a vacuum cleaner after a few days because the dog hair was out of control and this thing was absolutely ancient. A 1995 Electrolux Epic 3500. Wow, I wasn’t expecting a Dyson, but wow. I had to pull up a manual on the google because it wasn’t working right. I fixed it though. Oh and really soft water so you couldn’t get the soap off of you. That’s annoying.

And did I mention the neighbors? Possibly not happy the house next door is a short-term rental, they really were sure to be very obvious about that. That could explain the massive bushes between the houses. I heard a woman screaming on the phone about some pants she had ordered and had only worn twice and they were already falling apart. A very odd young adult male was walking around the front yard with headphones on every time we saw him. Possibly because of a screaming woman in the house?

Maryland doesn’t really allow dogs on their beaches. Even though we were assured no one would really care, we got yelled at by some asshole so we looked for dog beaches. There is a beautiful park south of downtown Annapolis called Quiet Waters Park. It has a dog park and a dog beach. All our girls wanted to do was swim so we headed there. Really lovely. It’s not a large beach, but there were about six other dogs there and the girls had a blast. Towards the end, it was just us and a guy with his dog Lou. The guy was from Maryland so we asked him questions. He absolutely loved living there even though it’s gotten expensive. Hey, we live in Austin, I know the feeling. He pointed out there were baby Jellyfish in the water. Oh yeah, this connects to the ocean. Duh. Then we saw a snake and he told us it was a copperhead. Shit. OK this was fun, but we’re done.

We also took the girls to Saint Michael’s across the Bay Bridge (very cool). It was a very cute little resort town, but a lot was closed because of staffing shortages. The girls went in every store and they were usually greeted with joyful shrieks. Occasionally, some horrible dog hater would give us a look, but that didn’t happen much.

I found a quilting store called the Crabby Quilter, which was absolutely fabulous. 4500 bolts of gorgeous fabric. I was in quilting heaven. I had planned on shopping for dinner, but I spent hours in this place imagining new quilts to make. I made a few unplanned purchases of fabric, I really need to get to work on more quilts!

One more trip to the Salty Paws was in order. Millie actually remembered exactly where it was. Gracie stole a bone off the rack so we had to go back and pay for that. We tried to shop a bit, but dog handling takes a lot of attention. Especially when walking by an outdoor café. Gracie will eat the food right off a stranger’s plate given the opportunity. It started thundering and we got to the car right when the rain started. We managed to get back to the house when the hail started. No garage so we have a crack in the windshield.

We did return to Chesapeake Beach and we do like it, but may look further inland in the future. Living on the water just doesn’t appeal to me. Something about hurricanes and flooding is just not my bag.

Annapolis is really a great town. It was warmer than I wanted, but then the winters aren’t super bad. The people are incredibly nice, very polite drivers. Everything you need is close by and you are close to a lot of fun vacation destinations. Crab cakes are fine. We ate them twice and I liked them. I’m just not a big foodie. It’s a crab cake, not the Holy Grail. All in all, Annapolis is definitely a contender for a future Kelly household.

I think the house was sad enough that we decided to drive straight home. That’s 24 hours in a car through Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and then Texas. 24 hours. In a car. With two bored golden retrievers. Needless to say, we haven’t felt that great since we got home. Like two over tired, grumpy babies.

 We learned a lot about how to read house descriptions on VRBO. And we laughed a lot. I’m really glad we were both on the same page about the house and we didn’t have to fight about it or feel guilty for not just being grateful for a long vacation. It’s good to know now that it’s OK to have dual feelings about things. I’m not selfish for being grouchy on occasion. Stuff happens that is going to be frustrating and uncomfortable. Isn’t it healthier to just let it out? Besides, constantly putting on the “happy face” when things aren’t happy is exhausting. And when you stop “faking it,” the real joy has a chance to show up.