Beach Condo Living is the Life For Me!

If you're gonna do a beach vaca, you might as well do it right!  For us, the stays in hotel rooms are long gone.  Not enough family members have ever been interested in renting a multi bedroom beach house, so beach condo high rise it is!

If you get a high enough floor, the views are amazing.  You get the early sunrise coffee drinking views, and the end of the day cocktail sunsets from your balcony.  You get a good look at the sky and water conditions before making your departure for the beach.  If you are up early enough, you can occasionally see the dolphins swim by.  But heaven forbid you hang anything off the balcony.  The resident Barney Fife will be on you in no time flat!

The kitchens are usually stocked with all the pots and pans that you will need, except for a dad gum muffin pan.  I now possess one in my condo supplies box!  Usually there are enough paper goods and towels to get you to mid week when they are supposed to come by for a midweek cleaning and restocking of l the towels, new sheets, and other odds and ends.  Most units have a washer, dryer combo in your unit, so you can depart with cleaned laundry instead of the OMG, laundry! when you walk through your door at home.

If the road traffic is unbearable on your arrival, wait til after 10:00 p.m. to make your basic grocery run.  This will take some of the arrival day stress off of you.  You can then make an early morning run for the other items that were not available or fresh on your initial shopping run.

We try to cook at least two evening meals in the condo, mostly on days where you are too worn out to go stand in a line waiting for a table.  Boiling or baking shrimp or making some type of pasta dish makes meal prep a no brainer.

Some of these complexes offer several grilling stations, being gas or charcoal.  This trip we had neither, and I have been having grilling withdrawal pains.  I had to walk through the local Starbucks to smell something burning to ease the pains.

When you are walking about the complex going to and from the beach, please wear a shirt or cover up until you reach your destination.  These young girls are very distracting and have gotten me in trouble a time or two.  And, the last thing a woman wants to do is stand shoulder to shoulder with a fella covered in body hair!

Once you get beach side, its a good idea to check the flag color of the day.  This typically tells you what to expect when you get to the water's edge.  If you bring your own umbrella, be sure to also bring a sand anchor.  We have already seen several umbrellas take flight on windy days.  One hit me in the back of the head!

If you are going to layout on a sheet or towel o a windy day, please be considerate of the people around you when shaking sand off on a windy day.  I'm still chewing and spitting out some body else's sand.

If you are going to play your favorite country tunes, turn it down a bit.  None of your neighbors want to hear a song about "my girlfriend fell in love with my tractor!"  And if you are going to talk and ramble on and on all day about absolutely nothing of importance, please lower your voice so that your neighbors can enjoy the crashing of the waves, instead of your brother's shack up girl friend that might be ya'lls third cousin twice removed!

My all-time worst pet peeve is this aerosol spray suntan lotion.  Two thirds of the can ends up in the air.  There is nothing worse than a two ton beach whale leaving a scent of coconut shrimp in the air!  Lotion people, lotion!

Be mindful to not bring bottles to the beach, and what trash you bring, you should also leave with.  If you see some that has been left, be a good beach citizen and pick it up and dispose of it the proper way.

When preparing for departure, you can pack the car with all of the beach supplies and all the other non essential stuff that won't be needed in the morning.

Remember, the month of August is a good time to be looking for sales of replacement items in your beach supplies inventory.  I've already stockpiled new charis and umbrellas for beach season 2016!

Happy Beaching everybody!