Well this was the bait. A beautiful home with an advertised view of the lovely Gulf of Mexico.

It has a quaint personal boardwalk that was supposed......

to lead to a beach that looked like this...

..but in reality led to this:

As an added bonus, there was also a fishing pier at the end of our little boardwalk.

Wouldn't you be thrilled to have your kids splash around in that?

Turns out we are on a BAY not the OCEAN. I could have stayed home and swam in Chickamauga Lake - FOR FREE.

There are details here. Lots and lots of details. Lots and lots of phone calls. Lots and lots of visits to other properties. To keep it simple, I'll just say that I have to give props to the management company for refunding the majority of our money since it was agreed the location of the house and beach quality was grossly misrepresented. I won't be happy until we get it all, but that's an issue that is yet unresolved. Also unresolved is where we will be staying after 11 a.m. tomorrow because we are SO out of here.

I know in the grand scheme of things this little situation no where compares to the plight of the hungry or fatherless. However, I can't apologize for my own reality. I live a life that only gets one vacation a year for my kids and dadgummit, we want that vacation to have fluffy, white sand and the sound of ocean waves - especially when I rolled all my change to get here.

So I'm wondering, have any of you ever had a vacation from Hades? I think it will make me feel better if yours was worse than mine.

Nothing like someone else's misery to put your own in perspective.

Y'all are awesome.