Seven Weeks Post Surgery - Needing a Break

I mentioned in my last blog that my husband and I are planning a road trip later this month to ride some roller coasters. I am really looking forward to it. However, we tend to take two different kinds of vacations. We either are doing something like going Vegas, Disney, riding roller coasters, skiing or doing something else that requires a lot of energy and has us constantly on the go. While I love and crave vacations like that because they are so much fun, I also really feel like I need to plan the second type of vacation: a "veg" vacation. A vacation to detox, de-stress and unwind. A vacation for the purpose of doing nothing.

2008 has been rough on me. So I am hoping that all the funerals of friends, divorce announcements, threats of job cuts, and health and injury problems for both me and my family are finally behind me.

I am tired of the leg brace, tired of the therapy, tired of icing my knee, tired of the swelling, tired of the pain, tired of the whole routine. I need a distraction. Obviously, my last vacation (which was also supposed to provide some stress relief at the time) didn't work out so well since I ended up tearing my ACL and MCL and since then I've had surgery, non-stop physical therapy and have been wearing a leg brace for the last 84 days. EIGHTY FOUR DAYS.

So, this week, I have been pricing out vacations on the Sandals website. My husband and I have been to Sandals in Jamaica twice before (Ocho Rios and Whitehouse). So, why go back to Jamaica, AGAIN, rather than go somewhere new, you might ask? Here are my reasons:

• It's a short flight from Nashville. With very little travel time and without ever leaving our time zone, we can be in another country and feel a million miles away.
  
  
• Sandals is consistent. You know what you are going to get when you go there. The food is great, the drinks are great, the atmosphere is great. No tipping is allowed and there are lots of fabulous included activities if desired. You never leave there feeling like you didn't get your money's worth. If so, you didn't try hard enough.
  
  
• The Sandals website is having a sale. A good sale. A sale that AAA and another travel agent couldn't compete with when I was comparing prices.
  

• I like Jamaica. I like the people, I like the gorgeous beaches, I like the reggae music. It's obviously a country where the native people don't have much, but Sandals (owned by a native Jamaican man) gives back to the Jamaican communities and provides great employment opportunities for them.

I want to just book some time where there are no schedules and nothing we have to do except eat, drink and lounge on the beach. If we want to, we can hit their gym (gotta keep that leg strong!). If desired, we can spend a few hours snorkeling. However, if a day goes by that only includes sitting at the swim up bar for a few hours, taking a nap in the shade and then digging our toes in the sand while we watch the sun set over the ocean, I would be okay with that.

I wonder if I have a beach, some reggae music and some rum, if I can go for a few days and not even think about my knee. Will there EVER come a time when I won't think about my knee?