Escape with my Besties

All moms should get away every once in a while. Away from kids, work, messy houses, husbands, and pretty much anything else that demands any bit of their time or energy.

Not to say that all of those things aren't worth it - they totally are - we wouldn't be here if they weren't all worth it. The Man is my rock and the thought of him not being in my life causes me great strife and sadness. My kids are my everything - I can't even begin to describe the type of all encompassing love I feel for them. But sometimes I just want to run away from all of them.  Does that sound bad? Maybe. Whatever.

They are demanding to me, just as I'm sure I'm demanding to them. And sometimes, I just want to run away and not be around anyone who is demanding anything from me. No dinners to cook, no stinky messes to clean up, no laundry to fold, no emails to answer, no packages to ship.

And that's when I escape with my Besties... even if just for a few hours.

Months and months ago, my Besties and I had planned to take last weekend off and go have a girls weekend. We hoped to be able to find a place where we could park our asses in the sand and have bottomless margarita glasses in our hands and laugh until our sides ached - for a full 48 hours. Unfortunately that didn't work out - we all ended up having commitments that didn't allow for us to run away for too long - but we did manage to sneak away for one blissful evening.

I wanted to see the sunset over Lake Okeechobee. It had been about 2 1/2 years since the last time I had ventured out to the Big O to watch the sunset with The Man and the kids and I'd been craving another sunset - this time with my Besties.

So, after we had all done all of the family things we had to do for the day (for me it was a flight with Young Eagles for Goober and a graduation party for my amazing nephew), my Besties and I met up. We packed up the car with chairs, cameras and refreshments and we headed west.

The laughter ensued before we had even gotten out of town. There is nothing like the silly, inappropriate, stupid laughter that can only come from four middle aged women who are free from their responsibilities for a few hours. Nothing.

It took about an hour and we reached my favorite sunset spot at Port Mayaca (anyone in the general vicinity of the eastern shore of the lake should venture over there one sunset - you will not be disappointed).  After a very frightening Thelma and Louise (and Thelma and Louise) moment where I was sure we were about to plummet off a small cliff into a feeder canal, we parked and dragged our crap down to the edge of the water.

After sitting in our chairs for exactly 2 minutes, we decided to climb down those rocks and on to the beach. I won't share the embarrassing photos we took of us trying to get down the rocks. I will just say that it was comical, but we made it with no injury.  Once arriving on the little beach, we discovered that it wasn't made of sand at all, but a trillion itty bitty shells.  We were so enamored with the shells that one or two of us may have scooped up a handful to bring home. Not me, just sayin. It's amazing to me how many little creatures there are in Lake Okeechobee that the entirety of the beach would be made up of their shells. Perfectly formed and untouched. They were beautiful. 

 After making some shell angels on the beach (ouch) and oohing and aahing about all of them, we actually sat and watched the sunset.

 And then we played with the timer on one of our cell phones so we could get pictures of all of us together.

About 5 minutes after this picture was taken the bugs came out and actually picked us up out of our chairs and dragged us to the car. We were literally making sure not to breathe heavy as they swarmed us. "Welcome to The Glades, Bitches" I think I heard one bug buzz into my ear.

Our drive back consisted of us getting just a little lost in a town called Canal Point (only a little lost because the whole town encompasses 1.5 square miles - seriously - Google it), laughing hysterically, a forced stop to pee on the side of State Road 80, and a little bit of indecency. It was everything it should have been and more.

We finished up the night by singing songs from our youth while drinking beer on the dock of a much, much smaller lake behind one Bestie's house. It was magical and very much needed.