world traveling

As a 24 year old with a pretty decent job who is still living at home, I have the luxury of spending my money on things that, if I was paying rent, I wouldn’t be able to buy. This year: 3 vacations.

family vacay

Nashville in June wasn’t so much a vacation as a trip since it was just for the weekend but there was a flight, hotel and two days and nights of heavy boozing that needed to be paid for. Last week was my family’s annual trip to the Outerbanks. Since I was an “adult” starting last year I started to pay for the trip myself which makes sense because I’m not a child and I shouldn’t have to depend on my parents for every single thing. They have been paying for my vacations for 23 years and, believe it or not, I was really happy to finally be able to do it myself. This year, even though I had my check in hand to pay for the week, my parents took pardon on me and paid for my share. Did I protest? Of course. Did I protest more than once? Nope. Our wallets had all taken a major hit this year from my sister’s wedding and they wanted to help me out. I’m lucky enough that they didn’t make me feel guilty once about it or even bring it up after they decided to do it. Gotta love Sue and Bill.

Tomorrow I leave once again and head back to the Outerbanks. The drive down there is sort of like what they say about child birth. Your body forgets just how awful it is and so you’re okay having some more babies. Usually there’s an entire year between the drive back home and the drive back down but since I just did it last week just thinking about it makes me want to cry. Too bad drinking and driving is illegal because that’s pretty much the only thing that would make it bearable. This time though, I’m making a stop about half way through to pick up Ashley in Arlington, VA so I will have her company for the second half. I’m pretty thankful for this and for the fact that I’ll have someone to sing along to *Nsync’s greatest hits and all our Homecoming mixes with me. I haven’t seen her since New Year’s and I’m excited to spend time bitching about our lives to each other for 5 hours.

home sweet home for the week

We’re all arriving at different times on Saturday but I think me and Ashley will be the last ones. Jules, Starkey, Skinny, Joe, Woody, Casey, Maggie, Chris, Andrew, Jaqueline, Nicole and her roommates will all be patiently awaiting our arrival at our humble abode for the week. Even though last week and this coming week will have both been spent in the Outerbanks, the experience next week will be quite different from last week’s vacation with my family. Last week I was up at 9 every morning, went out for a run and came back to enjoy some cereal and coffee. This coming week I’ll wake up hungover every day at 11 and head straight to the beach where there will be a cooler of cold beers waiting for me. Last week we all went mini-golfing one night. This coming week we have a Jersey Shore themed party planned for Thursday. Last week we had fun noodles in the pool. This coming week we have an inflatable beer pong table. Get my drift?

Though the Outerbanks is a little less expensive than other places I could be going, 3 vacations add up pretty quickly. I have decided that once Labor Day rolls around its time to put a little more into my savings every month and start to focus on making the move the eff out of 25 Truman. For the rest of the summer though I will enjoy the rest of my traveling and random $100 nights out.

See ya in a week!