Tag Archives: Vacation

Escape from the Mice.

13 Jun

On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

I mentioned last week that we were blessed with an unexpected beach vacation opportunity.

This came about while we were in the midst of the mice debacle. I was determined that the pesky mice would not deter us from the beach. Besides that we were experiencing mice fatigue.

How the vacation came about.

At the end of April, a friend texted and asked if we would like to join them for a week at a condo in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Ironically, I had just been looking at the calendar and was pleased to see that we had an entire month with no doctor appointments. (If you are old, you know)

I told here we were available and she gave me the details.

Her friend had booked the condo but decided after the cancellation date to not use it. She offered the unit to my friend and since it had two bedrooms she invited us to spend the week with them.

We were still dealing with the mice invasion, our closets were emptied and the contents scattered. I debated for about 5 seconds whether we should go or stay and root out the vermin. We set out traps, packed our suitcase and left.

The condo was on the beach and we had a lovely beach view by day, and the lights at the pool area were beautiful and soothing in the evening;

Morning coffee on the balcony was a perfect start to the day. We spent time in the evenings chatting on the balcony while the men were glued to their devices.

One day we ventured out to find a seafood restaurant a friend had suggested in Murrell’s Inlet south of Myrtle Beach. I had looked them up online and their menu was enticing and the prices weren’t awful. Trusting the GPS we drove south. We weren’t sure what the restaurant looked like and we almost passed it by.

The food was delicious, each of us chose something different. I decided to step out of my comfort zone and ordered shrimp quesadillas. I was not disappointed. It was delicious!

Another day we visited a shopping and amusement area, Broadway at the Beach. It is laid out around a body of water and to walk around it is two miles. Fortunately motor scooter rentals were available and each of the men rented one. We women walked with a few rest stops. I was proud of us.

My husband loves hats and he enjoyed browsing but he didn’t buy anything. My friend adores purple and there was a purple shop. It was fun to see the variety, everything purple. Of course I had to browse the candy store.

There were a lot of shops to browse and Interesting restaurants. I wanted to have lunch at the Grumpy Monk, but the others weren’t enthusiastic about it.

On check out morning, we weren’t able to score a luggage cart. But the resort had very sturdy shopping carts and my husband grabbed one. It worked really well. Steered better than a luggage cart too.

It was a laid back beach week and exactly what we needed.

We had made plans to go from Myrtle Beach to visit with family in North Carolina.

But plans can change in a moment. A phone call from our daughter in Florida sent us driving south rather than north. More on that next time.

I'm a winner

After my retirement, I decided to re-learn the canning and preserving skills I learned from my mother but hadn’t practiced for twenty years. I titled the blog Old Things R New to chronicle my experience.  Since then I have been blessed to have six other bloggers join me, DiVoran Lites, Bill Lites,  Judy Wills, Louise Gibson, Janet Perez Eckles and Melody Hendrix

In addition to blogging, I’m a general  “mom Friday” for my author daughter, Rebekah Lyn. I also manage her website, Rebekah Lyn Books  

My 2025 goal is continue to use my love of photographs and words to be an encourager on social media.

I'm a winner

After my retirement, I decided to re-learn the canning and preserving skills I learned from my mother but hadn’t practiced for twenty years. I titled the blog Old Things R New to chronicle my experience.  Since then I have been blessed to have six other bloggers join me, DiVoran Lites, Bill Lites,  Judy Wills, Louise Gibson, Janet Perez Eckles and Melody Hendrix

In addition to blogging, I’m a general  “mom Friday” for my author daughter, Rebekah Lyn. I also manage her website, Rebekah Lyn Books  

My 2025 goal is continue to use my love of photographs and words to be an encourager on social media.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Visits with Ivan & Dora Part 2

5 Jun

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

Bill

1png My work during those years took me to the Southern California area frequently, and this was great for us, because Ivan and Dora would always invite us to come visit them in whatever location they happened to be that summer.  I would take DiVoran with me for a week of vacation before or after my business in California and we would spend our vacations relaxing with Ivan and Dora.  We made several summer visits to their home in Vista, one visit to the Salton Sea (226 ft. below sea level), two visits while they were staying at Smithy’s on Marrowstone Island and one visit to Sapinero in Colorado.

Sapinero is a small community located on U.S. Highway 50, along the shore of the 2Blue Mesa Reservoir in western Colorado.  Ivan had wanted to move to Montrose, Colorado but couldn’t talk Dora into a permanent move, so summers at Sapinero were the next best thing he could come up with.  The community is made up of mostly part-time summer folks with their motor homes and travel trailers, who like Ivan, like the lake fishing.

3In 1955 Sapinero became an example of those stories about a riverside community being moved to a new location when those in power decided they needed to dam up the Gunnison River to provide water for the surrounding area.  The original Sapinero community now resides under some 300 feet of water.  The reservoir was stocked with Kokanee Salmon and Tilapia, which at the time I had never heard of, but were fun to catch and wonderful eating.

In addition to the rustic “Village Store”, which included the “Ley-Z-B Restaurant”, 4there are several old “rustic cabins”, one of which we rented for our one and only stay at Sapinero.  The problem with the cabins was that they were very primitive, and provide only the basic needs, such as very cold water and one 60-watt light bulb.  The bed sagged so badly that DiVoran and

I tended to roll in toward each other in the middle, and there was a 2” gap under the door.

5The two-hole outhouse was 30 feet down the drive and very dark at night, which reminds me of a little “outhouse trivia” you may not know.  It’s said that the first outhouse designs used a crescent moon cut into the door to identify the “Ladies” and a star cut into the door to identify the “Men’s” privies.  Then after a while, the star was dropped and privies became unisex in nature, mainly because the women kept their privies cleaner than the men did.  Bet you had never heard that one before!  I hadn’t.

One night while we were fast asleep, dreaming of how nice it would be to be to be sleeping in our own bed at home, DiVoran suddenly jumped out of bed screaming and brushing wildly at her hair.  I was still half-asleep and couldn’t figure out what was going on.  Finally, she calmed down long enough to tell me that something had 7run through her hair, and about that time, we saw this field mouse scurry out through the gap under the door.  Then I had visions of what else could find its way through that gap into our cabin looking for a warm place to sleep.  Well, you better believe we didn’t waste any time blocking that gap with towels, but I’m not sure how much better that helped us sleep that night.

8 Ivan had built a wooden cover and porch structure over his travel trailer to help shade them from the sun and give them a place to relax in the evenings.  TV reception at Sapinero was almost non-existent, so most evenings a bunch of the folks and/or some of the local cronies would gather at the Ley-Z-B Restaurant for dinner and/or to spend the evening sharing some of the many stories for which traveling folks and old cronies are known to have an endless supply.

Every Saturday evening the Ley-Z-B Restaurant hosted a western style Bar-B-Q at the Village Store.  People of all ages came from all around the immediate area to 9enjoy the great food. We even saw some bikers stop in to try out the ribs.  Someone would usually bring a guitar or banjo and provide the music for the evening’s sing-a-long, and a great time was had by all.

These are just a few of the more memorable times we have spent with Ivan and Dora over the years.  They knew how to relax and have a good time where ever they were, and that made It  relaxing and fun for DiVoran and me to spend time with them.  What wonderful memories!  We would love to do any of those trips over again if it were only possible.

—–The End—–

Tags: , , , , , , , ,