Only an Evacuation

We had the evening from hell. Well, sort of. We ate dinner at Senor Frogs because everyone else decided to go to Barefoot Landing at the exact same time as us. We ended the evening with a visit to Ripley's Aquarium. It is one of my children's favorite places in Myrtle Beach.

As we left the aquarium, I attempted to surprise my overtired boys with toys they were eying at the gift store. I always say no and for once, I wanted to say yes. What is better than a surprise? Instead of being so happy with my surprise, they broke into tears because the toys weren't right and they wanted to pick out their own. Needless to say, we said forget it. They didn't get their toys. After tearing into them for being spoiled and swearing we were cutting back, we drove back to our hotel.


They cried almost the whole way to our hotel. When we got there, all of the roads were blocked. There was no way in. So, we drove up to the cop and asked what was going on. It was a chemical spill. The hotel was evacuated and he said come back in an hour.


I wanted to yell "Come back in an hour? Are you kidding me? I have two screaming children in here who haven't slept all week and there are two carafes of sangria waiting for me up there. We can't come back in an hour." We drove away nicely and tried to think of what to do.


To kill time, we went one of the million souvenir shops. We drove around and came back. Still blocked. No luck. They said to come back in another hour. So we did what any parent would do. We went back on our "spoiled speech" and bought the spoiled boys some ice cream.


I told my husband as we watched the boys lick their ice cream that we made poor refugees. The only thing I knew was that only an evacuation would get them an ice cream.