Friday, July 2, 2010

Queen Bea's Rotten Vacation from Hades and Other Fun Tales!

Barnacles on the pier

So I'm back from my vacation and about as caught up on emails and laundry as I can probably ever hope to be. It never ends, you know!

To put it as politely as I possible can, this vacation sucked.

I've never been a big fan of vacations in general--they're expensive, take forever to plan, take longer to recover from, and usually prove to be more stressful than just getting up and going to work. My idea of the perfect vacation involves staying at a nice hotel with tasty (albeit probably ridiculously expensive) room service a stack of all those books I haven't had time to get around to reading and another stack of movies. I wouldn't have to cook, clean, be anywhere at a certain time, or take care of anyone else. Oh, to dream the impossible dream!

That, however, was not my vacation. The family wanted to go to the beach. In order to avoid tar balls and oil slicks, we decided to head to Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. I found a small hotel that had an oceanfront room, which would let us bring the dog along for the trip (she loves to travel and I hate having to board her.) 

So far, so good ... but then we got up before the crack of dawn in order to hit the road early. We probably at least should have waited until the sun came up.

Since it was so early and we were just walking from the front door to the car sitting in the driveway, my son decided to walk in his bare feet. He was planning on going right back to sleep anyway, so why bother, right? Wrong. Tragedy ensued when his foot landed squarely on the decapitated head of a rotting mouse. Apparently, one of my cats sneaked outside and caught himself a tasty snack--generously leaving the remnants for us as a present on the porch! As Rachel Ray would say, Yum-O!

Have you ever tried to wash the smell of rotting mouse  head off the foot of a screaming child at five in the morning? It's good times, folks.

View of the beach from the pier.

The dead mouse head pretty much set the tone for everything that followed. It was roughly 100 degrees, 100% humidity, and zero cloud cover. Basically, if you weren't in the water at all times, you were frying like a piece of greasy bacon. I feel like I spent most of my time in the hotel room bent over the bathtub trying to hand wash all the sand and salt out of everything. 

On a positive note, evenings on the beach were pleasant and there were a handful of highlights to the trip. 1) I got to try the buffalo chicken pizza at Ultimate California Pizza, which was awesome and totally worth cheating on my diet. 2) The fireworks display shot off from the pier right outside our balcony was great and much more than I expected. 3) Visiting the QVC Outlet.

QVC Outlet at Myrtle Beach.

Oh, yes, Queen Bea never stops working! You know I had to take the opportunity to see and touch all that amazing, amazing, amazing QVC merchandise for myself.

There were tons of kitchen things--Temptations (or however it is that they like to spell it), Cook's Essentials cookware, and even some of the expensive Polish stoneware. I even got to visit a Keurig they were selling. I missed my Keurig terribly!

There was a ton of clothes, but of course the extra long rack of sparkly Quacker Factory apparel was impossible to miss. All the usual suspects were there--Dialogue, Motto, and Susan Graver--along with a smattering of the designer duds. And I don't care what the Q says, the sizing is NOT uniform even within a particular line. I don't even know if it's possible to have perfectly uniform sizing. Women's bodies and the fashions that clothe them are just too complicated for a standard set of numbers to apply to everything. 

Oh yeah! I almost forgot. Surprisingly (to me anyway) there was quite a bit of Spanx for sale. I do love those body shapers, but I was in no mood to deal with Lycra.

I don't know if everyone is returning their Birkenstocks or if they're clearing out old stock or what, but the Q Outlet hit the freakin' Birkenstock mother load. I have also never seen so many Birkenstocks in one place before! And the prices were good too. If you're in the market for some hippie sandals, it's the place to go.

There wasn't much in the way of beauty products other than Ojon. Although after all the uproar over reselling used cosmetics, the Q probably wants to steer clear of that category completely.

There was a good selection of purses and probably worth a visit for all those hardcore Dooney collectors. And let me tell you, those B. Makowsky purses that have become ubiquitous on QVC really do feel like butter--battuh! I don't know if he massages cocoa butter on his cows every day or what, but it is truly some amazing stuff.

Of course, I had to hover around the jewelry counter for an inordinate amount of time. I think that I drove the nice jewelry ladies crazy. I really hate bothering them, but they set it up so that you have to ask them to take out each piece one by one. They were very sweet and helpful though. Like Judith Ripka always says, you have to play with your jewelry! There was a little bit of everything, but it seemed like the more expensive the designer, the less of it they carried. Or maybe the good stuff just goes fast?

The huge QVC sign over the bathrooms pointing you to where the Q store actually is. Queen Bea allegedly went into the bathrooms looking for QVC.

I finally settled on a cute pair of Veronese dangly earrings. Cute earrings that don't cost a bloody fortune are immensely good for Queen Bea's soul. And, Lord knows, I needed a little pick-me up!

The trip home involved not one, not two, but three major bumper-to-bumper, down-to-one-lane, might-as-well-put-the-car-in-park-cause-we-ain't-movin'-any-time-soon traffic jams. There were also multiple stops because people were having "digestive issues." I will spare you the details on that one. And the worst part was just trying to leave Myrtle Beach. We ended up getting caught in some heavy traffic--no, this wasn't one of the traffic jams, just congestion--in the blazing sun. The car's air conditioning just couldn't keep up and the dog nearly had heatstroke. Needless to say, it took forever to finally get home.

The ocean itself was beautiful, but I have no plans to be returning to the beach any time in the foreseeable future--or ever, for that matter!


(By the way, I do have a winner for the Float Life's a Beach Giveaway, but the winner will not email me back. If I don't hear from her today, I'll choose another winner. So if you entered, please check your email!!!)

13 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  2. OOH Queen you came at the WRONG time.. During the months of May through August are the WORST here.. There are SO many tourists you can't MOVE.. Unfortunately had I known you were coming I would have told you about the weather. The week you were here is so far the hottest on record and the humidity was just well, you don't need me to tell you,you were here.. Now today? and for the rest of the week? 80's and LOW humidity..Today was BEAUTIFUL out..I"m sorry you hit such a bad week here but I do hope you'll come back. The Outlet is pretty neat huh? I'm a handbag and jewelry hound so it works for me..If you should decide you want to come get in touch with me and I"ll let you know of all the happenings here and YES the weather.. Also next time? Fly baby.. So much easier..Fly, get a rental car and you're all set.. Driving here during tourist season is literally taking your own life in your hands....

    ReplyDelete
  3. Robyn, you are a sweetheart, but I don't think that I'll be coming to your neck of the woods again any time soon! :-)

    The outlet was cool though. I see all this stuff on TV on the air all the time, but never get to see it in person and touch it. I'm one of those tactile shoppers that has to pick up and touch everything.

    Oh! And I forgot to mention in the story that the day before we left my husband put his shaver on the wrong setting and accidentally shaved off most of his eyebrows. A bald man with no eyebrows is a sight to behold. If only he would've let me draw them on with my eyebrow pencil!

    ReplyDelete
  4. The comment about your husband had me laughing as I can see my hubby doing the same thing. I'm sorry that your vacation wasn't what you expected and wanted. I love your blog so much and was hoping for only good things for you and your family.

    ReplyDelete
  5. LOL!! OK thats too much.. Poor hubby... Yeah I did the same thing when the outlet opened.. I went on opening day and met Gabriel and the store was MOBBED.. You actually had to take a number to look at the jewelry and the Dooneys.. Well let me tell ya, I made those women work,actually I probably made them nuts because I wanted to "touch" every piece I was thinking of buying.. I wanted to see how it would look on me...But thats all part of the fun right? :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Ahhhh! Que lastima!

    Too bad about the miserable va-kay.....

    So here's a little song to cheer you up.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Never vacation with kids. It's no vacation. Next time you'll know. Sorry you didn't have a better time.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I've never been a big fan of vacations in general--they're expensive, take forever to plan, take longer to recover from, and usually prove to be more stressful than just getting up and going to work.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Enjoyed every bit of your blog.Really thank you! Really Great.
    Black Bra

    ReplyDelete
  10. The good enough article of I is very interesting. Prices on placing of the buttons are different but everybody chooses that to him it is comfortably and that answers his necessities and possibilities.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I like it! I like it a lot. You know precisely what your talking about, exactly where other People are coming from on this issue. I am glad that I had the fortune to stumble across your blog. It’s definitely an essential issue that not sufficient people are talking about and I am glad that I got the chance to see all the angles. Kim Kardashian

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hi everyone, You are providing good service to us. Your tips and tricks are so wonderful. More, this offer for you. If you need to get the Landscaping Services in Sacramento CA. Its so easy, you can get it on call.

    ReplyDelete

If your forbidden love is home shopping and you love all the latest dirt, then come on in ... Queen Bea is holding court!

You can also email me at homeshoppingqueen@gmail.com

Related Posts with Thumbnails

SEARCH THIS BLOG

Loading