Being away from home is not always a vacation.

It’s been several years since we had a real summer vacation. I remember them being action-packed and children-centered, usually spent with good friends on an ocean beach. Our mermaid daughter braved the waves past the breakers with the men. Made me drop my novel and sit on the edge of my beach chair... When you are married to vacation coordinator with an agenda to wake at sunrise and to find the best breakfast in town by 8am, the days are over-full. I remember digging a little leftover sand out of my ear on the way home and fingering seashells in every pocket and bag we carried. Still, I can hear giggles on the shore, the smell of Coppertone, and the sound of seagulls squawking over Cheez-its. After seven days of sun and fun I’d return to work, sunburned and exhausted, with the urge to curl up under my desk to re-energize myself. Vacations. Aren’t they supposed to relax and rejuvenate?

Getting away is good and we've been traveling! Since moving from Maryland to Delaware in 2002 then moving from Delaware to North Carolina in 2005, and about six new jobs between the two of us, I can’t count the number of trips I’ve made on the interstates for family medical emergencies, visits to a nursing home, and funerals. I wanna head north to have a happy, fun time, dammit, on a real vacation, in Maryland and Delaware with good old friends.

After four days away last week, I knew the hummingbird nectar was turning rancid. They waited. I missed them and my little dogs, too.

I’ve seen two males and two females. Numbers are low in Charlotte, possibly due to drought conditions. We don't know...

Right now I’d love to schedule a week vacation at home and tend to little projects around the house. Maybe take a few nature hikes. But there are drawbacks...

Are you coming outside with us? Ever?

A week at home means the Licker Sisters would hold me under their doggie thumbs while I wash the hardwood floors and follow me for bathroom breaks. I’d still cook dinner every night or throw something edible out on the kitchen table and call it dinner. Not a vacation!

Still waiting for my hummingbird photo of the year… I get caught up in what in they do and forget to point and shoot!

Afternoon thunderstorms have helped the wildflower beds I planted from seed. What is this?

Sunny southern skies combined with stormy northern skies make me worry for Gina and Billy traveling from a wedding in Virginia today. Worry is poisonous when it's your best sport, you know.

Funerals for family members suck the energy from your body and the spirit from your soul. Numbing. I've been craving a fix. I needed a shot of something pleasurable today.

Like a shot of distant and uncooperative herons

or a Turtle Rx along the road.

Good photos will come, in time.

Ya know? It’s time for a ME vacation. One that will be all for ME. I’ll travel to the mountains of southern West Virginia next April to be part of the New River Birding and Nature Festival. I’ll see some good friends I know well but never physically embraced.

Yip!

Thanks for your messages on my previous post. Life goes on.