Never Can Say Good-bye

It's time to pack up and head home.

Our annual family vacation with my husband's family has come to an end. His family is scattered from one to coast to the other, with a few in-between, so they make an effort to get together annually for the holidays and a summer family vacation. We've been vacationing together at various shore points (mostly) since 1993, from Sea Isle and Bethany Beach to Clearwater, Newport Beach and San Diego. Except for one brother with younger kids, most of our kids are now teens and one just graduated from college in June. Luckily, his family is very close and everyone gets along, so the week is a time for rest, relaxation and fun in the sun.

We usually also come to Sea Isle (or another shore point) in August for a week ourselves, but that doesn't look likely this year. Our daughter will be heading south to start her college career in mid-August and we'll go with to help her get settled in. We'll spend a few days on the beaches in South Florida, but that's not the same.

This will certainly be a year of big changes for us and this may just be the first.




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Another note. One strange thing that I noticed during our week here is the paucity of people (compared to other years) at the shore. This is the height of the summer season, but the beach, the boardwalk and especially the stores, were weirdly empty. This is the best sign for me that the economy really, really sucks.