Be careful what you wish for...

Oh, thank heaven. I'm home, sitting in my cozy little clean office chair, in my mammoth (compared to the Shack) house, which is clean and doesn't smell and I'm pretty sure also doesn't have...things...growing in the corners.

As vacations go, this one was right up there with High Hampton. BB and I had a fabulous time being together (which we never get to do), the food was good, and I read books like it was my job. But friends, let me just say that all wishes do not come true. A free vacation is a free vacation, and we get that, and while we'd like to consider ourselves low maintenance, the truth of the matter is that we actually require a few comforts that we've taken for granted thus far. That's all I'm gonna say about that. But just know that the sign on the front of the "cottage" that reads "Surf Shack" is really just cheap advertising for minimalist quarters designed to please college kids that want to smoke up at night, hit the waves during the day, and for whom showers are optional.

So last night after dinner, I found myself leaning up against the wooden rail of the pier leading down the beach. I was watching the sky turn a hundred different colors, from red to pink, then from blue to gray, and just as the horizon turned that murky shade that makes it hard to discern where ocean ends and sky begins, I felt a warm hand close over mine. Then softly, in my ear: "I love you." Aww, I thought, it's our last night here and Brian's being sweet because he knows I'm missing the old beach house and how we used to drink wine in the gazebo there at this time of night. "I know what you're thinking," he said. "You're worried that you're gonna fall off the ship next week, aren't you?"

Huh?

His smug little crocodile smile was ruining my sunset moment. "When you get to Miami on Thursday, you're gonna find a little gift in your suitcase from me. I'm packing The Poseidon Adventure and Airport 77 in there just for you!"

Oh, the meanness. He was right, though. I am just a teensy bit worried that I might fall off the ship, like that chick from New Jersey, and maybe I'm a tad anxious that my plane will go down. But do I really need to be reminded? I don't think so.

I have to say though, despite the, uh, basic living arrangements, we really did do some fun stuff. Monday we rode to Oregon Inlet, drove on the beach and briefly sat by the water until the wind forced us to leave. I got some pretty shells to add to my vase at work. We napped a lot, read lots of books and ate out a few times. Tuesday it rained off and on, so we rode to Duck and Corolla, and for the first time in the 7 years I've been going to Nags Head, I saw wild horses. There was a beautiful family of five, walking down the shoreline, where the water meets the sand. The daddy horse was black and walked at the front, a lot faster than the rest. The mama horse stayed at the back and the two juniors walked in between, keep a close eye on their sibling - a new foal! I only know he's new because his legs were all wobbly and his mother kept nudging him along with her nose. I got pictures on my phone, but they're fuzzy. It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen - we were in the Pathfinder, not 5 feet away from pure, wild Spanish mustangs. Amazing.

We sat on the beach for a while yesterday morning, but the evil biting flies that come in with the wind from the southwest had at us, so we left after a few hours. We timed it just right though - just before the flies rolled in, we saw porpoises cross in front of us - the water was so calm it looked like they were slicing through glass.

Now we're home - classes have started and I'm helping BB figure out Blackboard. Laundry must be done, thank-you notes written and then sometime tonight, I'm going to take a hot shower in my clean, spacious (ha!) bathroom and crawl into my fresh, clean fabulous sheets.

Ah. That's a vacation.