Amy Takes to Boat Life!

My friend Amy came down to the beach from Charlotte to stay for a couple of days before a conference she's attending here this week - SOOOOOOOO FUN to have someone to enjoy the boat with me without having to GO! GO! GO! all the time. In this picture it looks like she has bizarre Pippy Longstocking style pigtails coming out of her head -- she doesn't. It's the windshield wipers on the boat. I took this picture with my new camera phone and couldn't really see that on the tiny screen. Regardless, the smile on her face says it all -- it was no time before she took to boat life!

We got here Friday afternoon - not before having to pull off the side of the road at one point to adjust my bike on the bike rack because it looked like it was about to take flight at any moment. And I really didn't want to kill Amy, who was following behind me in her car. I could just see the headline "Woman Killed By Flying Bike". No Bueno (as Amy would say).

Amy and I have determined that while our parents could not be more different in terms of the way the express themselves - and especially with their political affiliations, we basically had the same childhood.

For example, although her family had a 9 hour drive to get to the Myrtle Beach area every year for their summer vacation and it only took us, oh, what seemed like 9 but was probably more like 4 hours -- both families went through the exact same routine: car bingo and other non-electronic games and amusements for the trip, a road-side picnic of sandwiches (made at home) chips, drinks and special cookies made only once a year for the beach vacation. Then upon arrival at the beach there was a contest to see who could see the ocean (or as in Amy's family's case -- who could see "the Lotion") first. Then once at "the place" (condo or whatever) our Mothers would commence cleaning the entire unit from top to bottom (because that's how they were raised). Afterwards, the Mothers would go to the grocery store with a grocery list for a week's worth of pre-determined menus. The similarities were pretty amazing.

Despite Amy's Mom being a very soft spoken Republican and my Mom being a very outspoken Democrat -- they have TONS in common on how they raised their daughters. Likewise, we agreed that the VAST majority of our friends were also basically cut from the same fabric. That's pretty cool.

We didn't take many pictures, but we enjoyed much needed girl talk on the front of the boat and watched the sun set so beautifully over the Intracoastal. We had drinks and eats at the Marina -- both at the Anchor Cafe and the poolside bar, we went for a pedicure, sat on the beach and played in the water (Amy's very first time of being in the ocean without the watchful eyes of her Dad!) and had steaks on the grill with Mom and A.Vee. It was the perfect weekend!