A Grown Up Time Out....In Turks & Caicos

 

Off to our snorkeling adventure

Mike and I are very grateful and very appreciative for everything we have.  We absolutely adore our lives and everyone in it - but sometimes you just need to take an adult time out...from LIFE.  Sometimes you just need to go off the grid and go somewhere with no cell phone service. Sometimes you just need to put your hypothetical "life pencils" down, and walk away.  And sometimes, you just need to throw some flip flops and swimsuits in a suitcase and get the hell out of town.

The Mobleys generally plan our vacations months in advance.  We are going to Greece in September, and I'm embarrassed to say that we've bought our tickets and booked flights for this trip back in February, SEVEN months ahead of time.  Our vacations usually involve a multi-page itinerary with days full of agenda items, and I spend months preparing the perfect set of outfits to fit in the smallest suitcase possible.  But we threw all caution (with reason, let's be real people...we ARE the Mobleys) to the wind when we decided to go to Turks & Caicos for a quick tropical getaway.  We bought flights & booked our room (thanks Mike Kahn!) at the Gansevoort a mere 2 weeks before our departure - definitely a record for us.

Upon our arrival at the gorgeous resort, we immediately threw on our bathing suits, grabbed our shades, lathered up on sunscreen (because we looked like ghosts after enduring what felt like 11 months of winter), and grabbed two cushy chairs by the luscious, sparkling swimming pool.  It was clear that we were still in a New York state of mind for the first few hours in Turks & Caicos because I was ridiculously impatient and my husband could not, for the life of him, sit still!  We were a tense, fidgety, anxious mess.  But the good news is - we were easily cured.  All it took was a rum cocktail & a Caribbean sunset and we were in full on Island Mode.

The only item we had on our agenda the full 4 days in Turks & Caicos was to RELAX.  Take it easy, don't follow an itinerary, don't worry about needing to be somewhere, read some books, take some naps under the shade of a big ass beach umbrella, sleep in late, work on our tans, have some romantic dinners, eat a boat load of conch, drink some delicious rum cocktails, take some walks along the beach, and just enjoy each other.  And we did exactly that.

But it wouldn't be a Mobley trip without some type of excursion, right?  So we booked a half day snorkeling trip on the Island Vibes to explore one of the world's most famous reefs.  Our hotel concierge told us that the Island Vibes was the boat that you go on "if you like a party", so naturally we felt like that was the right fit for us.  And it was the party boat because the reggae was blasting, the rum punch was flowing and the boat had a diving board on the top of the boat for you to jump off into the aquamarine ocean.  In just 4 hours we saw a myriad of festive marine life including a lemon shark, a sea turtle, a manta ray, parrot fish, iguanas, and probably the world's biggest grouper.  We also managed to make friends with 3 other couples who were from the tri-state area and we continued our little party with these new found cronies back at the Gansevoort where Friday night was "HOT!" (aka, they have a little DJ come play and you can get a few hours of dancing in!).

Enjoying the view from the top of
the boat!

Unlike most of our vacations, where I come home to New York City and experience a severe case of self-diagnosed PVD (post-vacation depression) for a few days, we came home feeling refreshed and recharged.  Our trip to Turks & Caicos was exactly what the doctor ordered.  We needed "US" time, and we needed to disappear from the city for a few days.  We needed to disconnect from work and from our electronic devices.  We needed to put our blackberries and cell phones in a locked safe where we don't need to access them.  We needed to actually print a boarding pass that wasn't for a business trip for once.

I wouldn't trade anything in the world for the travel adventures we take together.  Turks & Caicos was a destination that neither of us had visited before and some of my greatest joys in life come from seeing the world with my husband.  Whether we it's a quick 4 days in paradise to escape the madness of our high stress jobs in Manhattan, or an intricately planned trip to Europe, I live for these memories.  I embrace all the cultural surprises we collect from each one of our travels - like the local fish fry we stumbled upon during our second night in Turks & Caicos!  With just 3 months left until our 2014 Greek retreat, I'm looking forward to another 9 day date with Mr. Mobley!  We can't wait to share more of our stories and memories with you all!