The Perfect Chick Weekend

Mix three old friends, a long weekend at the beach, a cute beach cottage, marinate well in chardonnay and vodka tonic, stir well, and you come up with a great chick trip. I’ve known my friends Linda and Sue since seventh grade at Bay Point Junior High, so you could say we have some history. They both came to my sister’s funeral in July, and we vowed then to have a chick getaway in October. Three other old friends were scheduled to come–but weddings and sick husbands and mom’s 90th birthday got in the way, so it ended up just the three of us at Tybee Island last weekend. Sue flew down from Ohio and Linda flew up from Fort Lauderdale, and we spent the weekend kicking back, giggling and acting like seventh graders again. We started Thursday night with a great dinner at Sundae Cafe on Tybee. You should go. Try the shrimp and grits, or the grouper. Then we went back to our headquarters for the weekend, Key Lime Cottage, which is one of the cottages managed by my friends at Mermaid Cottages. This is the fourth one of their cottages I’ve stayed at, and the problem is that each one is cuter and cozier than the last. After dinner we went back to the cottage, climbed into our pjs and climbed into the time machine. I’d found a box of old notes from junior high and high school, and we travelled back to those days. My favorite note was the one from Linda warning me not to call her house because her mother thought we were shopping together, when actually, she’d gone flying in a little Piper Cub plane my cousin Art used to pilot. Friday we did some shopping and some touring around Tybee, then got ourselves in pirate mode. Sue bought us the tatoo sleeves, head scarves, and earrings at a Wal-Mart in Ohio. We picked up the wooden parrots on Tybee.

We wandered around the Pirate’s Fest thieves market for a while, buying t-shirts that said things like SURRENDER THE BOOTY. Then we strolled over to the outdoor stage, where a great Zydeco band played, followed by the Atlanta Rhythm Section. After we’d rocked out for a while, we went over to Doc’s Bar on Tybrisa. If you read SAVANNAH BREEZE you’ll remember Doc’s as the place where Harry Sorrentino liked to hang out. Doc’s had a great band too, and my friend Jacky joined us, and we danced and laughed some more. Saturday we watched the Pirate Parade, complete with boats and lawn-mowers decked out as floats, Shriners on motorcycles, and, of course, lots of wannabe buccaneers kickin’ it Johnny Depp style, complete with eyeliner and dreadlocks.


That night we headed back to Doc’s, where we met friends Ron and Leuveda, who demonstrated Carolina shagging for Linda, who’d never seen it before. Sunday morning we had a little porch time at Key Lime before reluctantly packing up and heading home.

We’ve already started planning next year’s Pirate’s Fest weekend. I hope my husband won’t miss our lawn-mower.