Spring Break Part II, much-belated

About a bazillion years ago, I promised a post about the low-lights of my Spring Break. That was a long time ago, but I'd like to relive my vacation instead of studying for my finals. They're not particularly terrible; most are about the weather. Here goes:

1) It started raining as we were loading the car Saturday morning. It rained for the next 4 days. Then it stopped. Then it started again.

1a) And when I say it "started again" I mean this: We had one morning to spend on the beach. We got there, it was cloudy, we laid on the beach anyway. The sun came out. Excited, but worried about sunburn (Rhett and I are both pasty white kids), I went across the street to CVS to get sunscreen. I got back to the beach and began applying sunscreen. The rain had started before I'd finished putting the sunscreen on.


1b) When I was in high school, there was a period of time where it rained for two weeks straight. Ever since then, I've thought of how a story about never-ending rain would make for a good horror story, but I can't think of a plot, except the ones that have already been done, like Ray Bradbury's All in a Summer Day. (Read it here, after clicking on the link under "Training Resources.") (That, for the record, is a story I can't even read. I find it too horrible.)


2) We had a lot of things planned for our first day, Sunday in Virginia Beach, so I got up to go to a 7 AM Mass. I don't think I've ever been to church that early before, and I don't think I will be again until I'm at least 65, like all the other people who were there that morning. The priest gave a rather long, complicated homily that had good points but was a little difficult to follow. He ended with talking about how you shouldn't do good deeds or pious practices so others would see how good you were. "Do them in secret," he said, "God will love you more if you do."

Really? 'Cause I'm pretty sure that how much God loves me doesn't depend on anything I do.

3a) I left a pair of pajamas in Savannah. I just plain forgot them. They must have been under the covers or a towel or something.

3b) I started to run short of underwear towards the end of the trip, so in Florida I took 3 worn pairs out of my suitcase, washed them in the sink, and hung them up to dry in the bathroom. I didn't miss them until I was most of the way through South Carolina. One of them was my favorite pair, too.

3c) The following Monday, as I was heading in to work, I couldn't find my badge. I got a provisional badge for the day, and looked through my suitcase and all over the house when I got home. No luck. I had to get a new one; my old one could be anywhere on the East Coast.


4) When I got back, I had a headache for 4 straight days. I'm pretty sure it was my eyes adjusting to the new glasses I got when I was in New York; I hadn't had an appropriate prescription for over a year.


5) We had an amazing trip, but my goodness, a 9-stop road trip over 9 days is not a relaxing vacation.


6) Our 30-minute trip over an incredibly long bridge in the cloudy, gray rain. There was nothing but gray for as far as the eye could see: gray bridge, gray clouds, gray rain, gray water. The bridge was so long we couldn't see where it ended, and I literally thought we'd be on it forever. It seemed like it was never going end. We called it "Purgatory."