Mishaps and friend-cations

I love a resort vacation once we get there, but preparing to go, not so much.

 

As if trying on my fat clothes and skinny clothes was not stressful enough, my spouse usually starts digging into stuff that we haven’t seen in years. For this particular trip, he was into old hats. 

 

He came out wearing one that, I swear, made him look like a 90-year-old woman. I probably shouldn’t have told him that, but we did compromise on a safari-style hat. I knew that we’d each buy a new one when we got there, even though he would say we didn’t need anymore, so I didn’t pack one.

 

Packing. Ugh. Just eliminating shoes from the suitcase makes my blood pressure go up. We were traveling with two other couples and knowing that they were going through the same stressful decisions made me feel a little bit better.

 

Next up, composing my carefully written tome of instructions for my beloved dog. I agonized over the thought of even one minute of her life being uncomfortable while I was gone.

 

In the midst of packing and organizing for our morning departure, my spouse decided he had to wash two of our three cars, neither being the one we were driving on the trip, as well as clean out the garage. 

 

The next morning we all met at the home of one of the couples. We were only taking two cars, so we divided the luggage and carefully repacked half in each car. 

 

Two and a half hours later we were in nirvana with two couples unpacking in their sumptuous rooms. One couple had no clothes to unpack. After being assisted by resort staff to comb the whole place, a call to a neighbor showed us the light – the clothes bags that were carefully hung over the picket fence until everything else was

puzzle-pieced into the cars was still on the fence. I won’t mention any names, but one person in the bagless couple was wearing a safari hat.

 

The first night at dinner, most of us were freshly showered and dressed in one of our neatly packed outfits. Two of us were still wearing the same sweaty clothes from the morning.

 

The next day we took a short nature cruise and then went shopping. The men went one way, and bought one outfit. The women went the other way and bought dresses in abundance.  

 

Luckily, one poor soul with no clothes put on an outfit and walked right out of the store looking like a million dollars. It wasn’t me.

 

The next few days couldn’t have been more wonderful. Gorgeous weather, touring, cruising, eating amazing food, swimming, laughing, sleeping and just pure friendship.   

 

All good things must come to an end. We carefully packed up the cars, making sure all of the luggage made it inside. We had our last amazing breakfast. 

 

We drove away from the resort talking about how we must definitely come back again next year – and my spouse and I were proudly sporting brand new hats.