I Went to Buc-ee’s and the Beaver Made Me Leave My Soul Behind so My Body Could Walk Free
/
We did it. We paused our busy summer schedule to escape for a week and a half of vacation to Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. Or perhaps more accurately, my wife, Michelle, paused her busy work schedule and the kids and I continued doing basically nothing but in a different geographic location. I decided like five minutes ago to commemorate the occasion with a vacation diary. Please keep in mind that I made zero notes while we were at the beach because I was too busy living in the moment (looking up the lyrics to the Dude Perfect theme song), and I’m writing this several weeks later because I’ve been too busy living in the moment (watching the kids watch YouTube while I grapple with my failing novel manuscript).
All that’s to say, take everything you read here with a grain of salt (and sand).
Day 1 (pretty sure about this one) — June 29
Thursday was our first travel day. Our plan was to drive from central Florida to Savannah because we couldn’t get into the beach place until Friday, and we didn’t want to drive the full distance in one day because our kids hate the car. To be clear, they can do the same things in the car that they do at home (watch YouTube and play video games), but they still hate it. Go figure. Before we left, we transported our bunnies, Apollo and Artemis, to a friend’s house where they were to spend the week doing whatever bunnies do on vacation (shoutout to Jules and Fox for making this trip possible). Whenever I’m chauffeuring the bunnies, my fear is that they will escape their cage and start darting around the interior of the car, tearing at my eyeballs with their little claws and generally wreaking havoc while I try not to crash the car into a ditch. This did not happen, so the drop-off was a success.
We left in the afternoon and drove from our house to Savannah with maybe two stops along the way. Only one of the stops mattered: Buc-ee’s.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Buc-ee’s, I strongly suggest that you keep it that way. I was unfamiliar with it until June 29th, and henceforth, my life will be divided into my salad days when I was blissfully blind to Buc-ee’s and the aftertimes. It’s much, much darker on this side of the veil. The kids spotted the cute Buc-ee’s beaver billboards along I-95 and harassed me relentlessly until I swerved onto the exit ramp about 75 miles after we saw the first advertisement. Why not? How bad could it be? Oh, how naïve I was. The first thing you notice when you pull into Buc-ee’s is there are about 700 gas pumps. There may or may not be a sign that says, “Welcome to the Global Warming Capital of the World: Brisket Inside.” Despite the seemingly endless row of pumps, we still had to circle two or three times to find a spot. Apparently, other people have heard of this place?
I don’t know what I was expecting as we walked inside the store, possibly a very large Wawa. That’s not what I got. The kids stopped to take a picture with the big bronze beaver statue that was reflecting the blazing sun with a vengeance. Then, the automatic glass doors peeled open to reveal… a mass of humanity, a million American flags, and brisket as far as the eye could see. My attention went everywhere all at once, like a bunny set loose in a car. There were piles and piles of home décor items emblazoned with Old Glory, t-shirts, souvenirs, a literal truck filled with Buc-ee’s beaver plushies of all sizes (we bought three), seventeen brisket stations, a night club, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, snacks, a live petting zoo, and thousands of Buc-ee’s employees walking around wearing toy-like cowboy hats.
We were lucky to escape with our lives and three Buc-ee’s beaver plushies for $62.99. I left feeling like I walked up to the mouth of hell, had a look inside, and was somehow allowed to turn back. The only real downside was I had to leave my soul behind with the beaver for safekeeping. That’s the only way he would let my body walk free without gnawing off my legs with his gigantic front teeth. The iced coffee was okay. Neither good nor bad.
We made it to Savannah in the evening with all our appendages intact and lacking only one soul. Not bad for a day on I-95. We checked into a hotel near the historic downtown area that was somewhat reasonably priced and had free breakfast. We rested for a bit, then walked about half a mile to Little Duck Diner where we enjoyed a casual meal surrounded by a few locals, a few tourists, and hundreds and hundreds of tiny rubber ducks. I had a deluxe grilled cheese topped with avocado and tomato and a beer, Michelle had a different kind of sandwich (I think) with a cocktail that had a rubber duck in the glass, two of the kids had pancakes that were smothered with a layer of melted chocolate chips that was as thick as a beaver’s pelt, and the third kid had a standard grilled cheese that he dipped in the chocolate chip pancake smear to add a little pizazz. It was an extraordinary dining experience.
We walked a different route back to the hotel to get a real feel for the city. There were some old buildings, a few squares, and several thousand ghosts. My oldest didn’t like it much because there were very few modern buildings. The kids swam in the hotel pool either before or after dinner and the next morning after breakfast. I attempted, and failed, to take artistic photographs of outdoor lamps while watching them swim.
Day 2 (some of this stuff may have happened on different days but who’s going to fact-check me?) — June 30
We drove from Savannah to Wrightsville Beach on Friday; about four and a half hours of driving time. The main thing you need to know is that we did not stop at Buc-ee’s, so I still have my legs, and we did stop at Cookout. Going to Cookout is like a religious experience for Michelle and the rest of the family also enjoys it. I was driving so I pulled up to the drive-thru speaker and proceeded to read out an order that was almost as long as the Gettysburg Address. Before anyone says it, I know the Gettysburg Address isn’t that long, but it’s way too long to comfortably recite into a fast-food restaurant’s drive-thru speaker. Particularly a restaurant like Cookout, which, despite being relatively new, seems to always be equipped with 1980s audio technology. The workers speak into one of those Price Is Right-style microphones that rise menacingly from the counter like a snake, and the audio quality is so poor, if they ask you a question, you just have to say “yes” in response to the crackling and squawking and hope for the best.
And frankly, listing off milkshake orders for five people is humiliating even under the best of circumstances; I had to swallow down my embarrassment dry, much like I did a few minutes later when I scarfed down a fistful of hush puppies while waiting for my milkshake to soften. The whole family agreed that the milkshakes were excellent.
We arrived at the beach condo in the early evening and immediately opened every door to see what was lurking in the closets (a fan!). I believe we ordered Panera on this day to get a little local flavor, but I could be getting this dinner mixed up with another day when we ordered Panera. The condo is oceanfront, so it seems likely that we walked down to the beach at some point, but I’m not sure.
We also spent some time unpacking, watching YouTube videos, figuring out which board game pieces were missing from the game cabinet, and getting the Dude Perfect theme song stuck in my head for the first, but definitely not last, time. We tried to go to bed later, but the kids refused to sleep because no one wanted to take the top bunk, so we all got annoyed with each other and it was a whole thing. One of the kids ended up sleeping on the couch in the living room and I slept in a chair beside him so he wouldn’t wake up alone in a strange place. Sleeping on the chair proved to be a challenge, and at some point during the night, I sleepily thought I might’ve been better off giving my legs to the beaver instead of my soul so I could sleep more comfortably.
Wow, this is getting really long, and it’s only been two days. This might end up being seven parts, or equally likely, you’ll never hear from me again. You know how life is. People come and go; souls are devoured in novelty gas stations…