Blue Mountain Beach: Day 1 of 8

We went through Montgomery and made the best time yet

Locked and loaded

Snacks?...check

Krystal for lunch on the way out of town

Finally on the road


Lulu, our dachshund, stayed at home, so Derek brought "travel Lulu" so he wouldn't miss her so much

We're here!

Enjoying dinner with everyone

Watching the Final Four - Laine was already in the money and had a chance to win the office pool

Derek and Adam couldn't wait to hit the pool

Mom, Helen, and sister Katie relaxing around the pool

Saturday April 3, 2010

For Spring Break we did our annual trip to the beach with my family. This year we stayed in Blue Mountain Beach, Florida. It's another one of the beach towns in the area that we really like along highway 30-A.

My brother, Jason, and wife, Laine, are still on their "break" from work and currently living in Sarasota, Florida. Since they had some time, they attempted to find a different beach area for us to stay in this year, but discovered that the 30-A feel is pretty unique. They couldn't find anything that seemed to offer the same cute, laid back, beach feeling so we ended up back along 30-A after all.

My sister, Kelley, and her beau, Paul, flew from Anchorage, Alaska to Orlando to hang out with Jason and Laine some before they all made the road trip to the beach. My sister, Katie, drove over from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. My mom drove down from Atlanta like we did.

I wanted to leave earlier, but my tennis team was short on players so I ended up having to play. I stayed up late the night before to pack the van so that we could hit the road as soon as I got home from tennis, but as usual it still took longer than anticipated to actually pull out of the driveway.

We hit Blockbuster on the way out for some movies. I was feeling pretty good about how quickly the selection process had gone and headed to the counter with about 15 movies where the clerk informed us that their policy had changed so that movies could only be rented for 5 days. I left the movies at the counter, mentioned something like "...and you wonder why everyone is switching to Netflix", and walked out with my stunned family trailing behind. The kids wanted to know what happened. Helen had to explain because I already had the van started and was ready to roll.

We stopped by Krystal for lunch before finally getting on the road. Amazingly, we didn't hit any traffic south of Atlanta where the road construction has been going on for multiple generations it seems. Sometimes we take the route through Eufala, Alabama which is a beautiful town, especially when the azaleas and dogwoods are blooming, but the traffic can really back up there so we decided to stay on the interstate and head farther west to Montgomery. We didn't stop until we were a few miles from the beach house and made the best time ever.

Everyone was already at the beach house when we arrived. Kelley and Paul were leading the dinner duty and it was just about ready - perfect timing for us. Laine invited a couple that she knew from Atlanta to dinner and we all had a great time. The boys couldn't wait to hit the pool after dinner.