There’s ocean sand on the floor of my landlocked North Dakota home and seashells in a plastic cup on my kitchen counter. The smell of sunscreen and the ocean lingers in my laundry room as I let our vacation clothes pile up for a few more days, beach wear underneath dusty Carhartts underneath button-up shirts underneath spaghetti-sauced sweatshirts.

My 7-year-old has a little tan line on her shoulders, her skin kissed by a more tropical sun. Her sister is scratching at her flushed and flaky cheeks from a much harsher reaction to the same sun and surf.

“Once that saltwater hits, it’s gonna be a wake-up call,” my husband remarked as we boarded our connecting flight from Atlanta to Panama City. 

Our daughters looked small and spindly under the weight of their bulky backpacks stuffed with books and markers, blankets and sizable stuffed animals that I realized were the completely wrong choice of companions for the trip. In their short lives, our daughters had yet to see the ocean, but that night they would have their chance under a darkening sky and a strong wind. 

Dressed in their sweatshirts and long pants after a steady Florida rain, we would take them across the street and across the boardwalk and onto the white sandy beach, where they kicked off their sandals and ran toward the big waves of the Gulf of Mexico.

What a gift to be a kid with the chance to encounter the ocean for the first time. Its vastness and noise, its dangerous playfulness. Its relentlessness. Its saltiness.

It was too cold to swim, but after about five minutes of playing tag with the waves, our northern daughters pushed it far enough to be completely soaked by the chilly water. Of course. Just the day before I caught these two up to their knees in a sorta-still-frozen culvert puddle back home in our yard with their cousins, the chilly ocean was no match for them. 

We’d been talking about our family trip to Florida every below-zero day on our way to school for the past month, and here they were, on the cusp of a week that would be filled with more wave chasing, pool swimming, roller skating, dolphin spotting, seashell picking, ice cream eating, beach baseball playing and more pool swimming than their little bodies could handle.

My mom booked this Panama City Beach house for our extended family vacation around the time she decided to close her retail store. I think it was a little bit of certain sunshine she could look forward to in a future that felt uncertain after that big change. And isn’t that one of the best gifts a getaway does for us? It becomes a beacon of hope among what can sometimes feel like a daily drudge.

And in North Dakota, January and February can definitely feel like that drudge. So finally getting to come together, my sisters and their families and my mom and dad, to shed our winter skin, hang out by a pool, make plans, eat too much, and snuggle up on a big couch all worn out and sun-kissed (or burned) at the end of the day is a gift we were so lucky to receive before spring turns into calving season and calving season turns into haying and construction season and 4-H and softball and all the great and busy things about summer in North Dakota.

And Florida … it was great. The sunshine and the pool and the big dinners and the dolphin island catamaran cruise and the beach and the waves that sent our spindly girls rolling, throwing sand down their shorts and yes, that pesky saltwater into their eyes. But when we asked them what their favorite part of the whole trip was, you know what they said? Playing baseball on the beach.

Which, I have to say, didn’t surprise me knowing kids in general. The idea that they had a chance to hit a little soccer ball with a stick with the attention of all their uncles and teenage cousin and their moms and grandma cheering them on from the lawn chair? That’s all a kid can ask for, honestly. 

So, if you’re thinking a getaway that requires airfare just isn’t in the cards, I’m here to tell you it doesn’t have to be. Maybe the only cost of taking a meaningful family break is your time and undivided attention.

And I guarantee the memories will linger longer than the sand we’ll be sweeping off the laundry room floor.