May 23, 2016

Layovers...

After leaving Cincy vaguely still drunk and high on an amazing weekend, I landed in Charlotte to continue my two week hiatus in Destin.



We landed right on time and then proceeded to sit. I thought, no worries, I've got plenty of time before my next flight boards. 45 minutes to be exact. And 20 minutes later we still hadn't gone anywhere. 10 minutes later we got an announcement that we were waiting a terminal. I got nervous. So help me god I am not going to miss my flight to Destin. We finally pull into our terminal and the pilot politely asks people to allow others who have a short connection to get off first.

I raised my hand so high and so fast. I have 10 minutes to get off this plane and board my other plane before it leaves. I also just ran a marathon, so moving quickly was not ideal. In the Cincinnati airport you could tell who had just run the marathon. Not so much in Charlotte.

I was off the plane and hobbling as fast as I could to find my gate. I start to skip run because my gate was further away than I would have liked. I finally rounded the corner to see my gate and hear my name being called for final boarding. I snaked right on in there in the nick of time. I also scored a row to myself and promptly fell asleep.

Waking up to the sight of the ocean is one of the greatest feelings in the entire world to me. And the beach did not disappoint. Immediately all of the stress of this year just melted away.



I ate as much tuna, drank as much beer, and played as much farkle/yahtzee as humanly possibly every single day. I was up with the porpoises and asleep by 9 pm every single night. We saw sea turtles, crabs, sharks, and baby porpoises. I collected all the shells as I regally strolled (limply waddled) down the beach.










Not much can beat the beach in my book. I've been going to same beach for as long as I can remember and each year it is new and different. I love that about the ocean. Each day is an adventure.


May 20, 2016

Two weeks.

What do you do when you want to run away from all responsibilities? You do just that and you run away.

I took almost two weeks off of work (consecutively) and I am zero amounts ashamed as to how awesome it felt to basically put my middle finger up to the man. 

I was getting that run down, I hate everyone, please stop talking to me forever feeling. Each day was a little bit more soul crushing than the last. Luckily for me, I had a trip planned and something to look forward too. 

Working in a "corporate" job means you have to follow their rules in regards to vacations. That personally is a big hurdle for me. Coming from the small business spectrum and working for and with the amazing people that I did, I was fortunate enough to be able to peace out without so much as second thought. Not having a salary and benefits has a few of it's own hidden perks. 

The first part of the two week hiatus started with a 7am flight to Cincinnati. To run The Flying Pig. The Pig is a marathon. A very hilly, hilly, hilly marathon. I flew up to Cincy to hang out with some girls I had met this past October running through the hills of middle Tennessee. Those girls. Lindsay and Maggie are the best. So many laughs.



The Pig. The race that broke me. Literally. It was miserable, but I finished it and it was worth every tear and muscle cramp along the way. When the weather turns out to be 75 and sunny instead of 60 and rainy, you hobble your broken ass down to a bar to drink away the feelings and soak up the sunshine. Which is precisely what we did. We hobbled our way uphill (because Cincinnati only goes uphill) and made our way to The Blind Pig. We ate some bar food and drank all the beers before we decided we had been burnt enough for one day and needed to shower off the goat smell before we ventured out to drink away even more feelings. 

We stayed at The Cincinnatian Hotel Sunday night (Saturday we all crashed at Lindsay's house with her adorable boys. They were total troopers and dropped us off at the race and cheered us on!). The Cininnatian is baller. Like baller. They have real keys to access the rooms. We had to take a shot because Maggie hates elevators, but we were on the 7th floor and she had also run the marathon. So shots it was. Delicious, delicious shots. Once we were showered and in actual clothing (some of us may or may not had bobby pins holding together our pants...ahem Maggie), we made our way down a hill to go to Yard House. The last time I was at Yard House, I was in Hawai'i. Naturally I ordered Hawaiian beer and a shrimp bowl. I love that place. On our way down to Yard House it started to monsoon. I mean the heavens opened and they didn't hold back. Soaking wet we roll into the coldest restaurant in America. Luckily beers and laughs make everything more bearable. 

After Yard House we ventured across the street to Jefferson Social where we watched Lindsay's husband be a one man band and have all the women swoon over him. Such a fun way to finish my time in Cincy. I was definitely bummed to know I wouldn't be spending another day with those two weirdos, but I feel we made the best of the twoish days we had together. Especially by finishing the night snuggled into a king size bed.




Monday morning I got up at 5 to make my 7 o'clock flight. I shared a cab from the hotel with a gentleman from Houston (who picked up the tab) who had also run The Pig and also didn't want to talk about how miserable it was. 

Stay tuned for the layover from hell....