Do Nothing Day

I love the way we vacation.

Whenever we go anywhere - hell, sometimes I can see it at home because people often come to our neighborhood to vacation - I stand back and watch as other families tear through their vacations: frazzled mothers, impatient fathers and overstimulated kids checking maps, consulting their watches and trying to make sure that they don’t MISS anything.

We don’t do it like that.

That’s not to say that we don’t make plans. It’s just that we don’t feel like we need to live and die by those plans and, unless we’ve got a reservation for something, if we wake up and feel like being lazy by the pool, that’s what we do. We refuse to feel guilty about it, and we refuse to succumb to the frenetic, gotta-d0-everything attitude that most people have when they’re on vacation.

Today was a do-nothing day. We got up (late - it was lovely), and headed down to the restaurant and grille at the condo complex where we’re staying and had brunch with Martha Washington. Well, WE had brunch - Martha talked about social customs and dress and the life that she lived. The woman who put the talk on did a lovely job, even if many of the brunch guests were inconsiderate boors. (I told myself I wasn’t going to get hung up on other people’s rudeness this week, though, so I’m going to refrain from telling the stories - yes, plural…).

After Martha’s talk, we were thinking about going to Jamestown (something we’d more or less decided earlier to forego), so we headed back to the apartment to see what was what and make a decision about what we would do for the day. I read a bit about Jamestown’s story aloud from the guidebook we brought from home, then Mr. Chili read the section on Williamsburg’s history. It was round about that point, with a full belly and the sound of Mr. Chili’s voice, that I fell asleep. The family, very graciously, let me nap for damned near two hours; Mr Chili had let the girls play online for a bit, which is why there was no mutiny. That pretty much sealed the deal on not going to Jamestown today. When I woke up, we donned swimming attire and headed for the pool.

After a dip, we went into town to do some shopping. A quick run through Target (Punkin’s bathing suit needed replacing, and Mr, Chili needed a computer cable so we can BOTH use the internet - the subscription he bought was a single-user license), we made our way through the grocery store to stock our kitchen for the week. We try, whenever we stay in condominiums, to eat at least two meals at home every day, so I bought breakfast fixings, some mac and cheese and hot dogs, some salad, some ice cream, and a watermelon. That should get us through at least until Wednesday.

After hanging about in the apartment for a while, we ate the rest of last night’s pizza for dinner, then went off in search of mini-golf. There’s a place here that’s owned by the same company which owns an outfit a few towns over from where we live; it’s pirate themed and I really like the one at home, so we decided to give it a shot. It was PACKED, and not what you’d call cheap, so we found ourselves another spot on what can only be called Tourist Trap Boulevard. It was fun (Mr. Chili and I tied, can you believe it?!) and it was worth what we paid for it. I couldn’t resist a trip through the “trading post” next door, and we came out with a book about this area’s history that’s geared toward the girls’ ages, so it was worth roaming through all the junk. I’m hoping to find gifts for loved ones back home in Colonial Williamsburg - I can’t bring myself to buy kitsch as souvenirs.

I was damned and determined to get the girls into bed before ten tonight, so we came home, had a little ice cream, and Mr. Chili read them their book. As soon as I hit “publish,” I’m off to bed, too. We’re planning a do-SOMETHING day tomorrow - we’re going to spend the whole day in Williamsburg - and I want to be well rested.

I keep promising you pictures. I’ll keep that promise before the week is out, I swear - though please notice that I added pictures to the Hershey/Gettysburg entry. We just didn’t do anything picture-worthy today (though I did take a blog picture of the girls - from behind them as they jumped into the pool - but I haven’t downloaded it yet); I’m expecting there’ll be all kinds of good pictures tomorrow!