By Beth
I'm not a huge fan of the beach. Mostly because I'm not a size 2, but I also don't like sand getting stuck in places that never see the light of day, or sunburn, or sand fleas, or sweating buckets. I do like the feel of sun on my skin and the sounds and (most) smells associated with the beach though. So I would say it's a love-hate relationship. Ironically, most of the family vacations I've taken in the past several years have been to beach-y type places. These trips have obviously taken place in the summer when the beaches are most crowded, very hot and no matter how great the water pressure is in your shower, the chance of you emerging from the tub completely sand free are about the same chance I have of ever being a size 2. So when we put going to the beach on the list, we decided it needed to be in the winter, and that we had to build a sandcastle. We would successfully avoid sunburn in the winter as well as people who are a size 2 and sand fleas, most likely. There would still be the issue of sand everywhere, but not nearly as bad as it would be in the summer. Neither one of us was planning on actually wearing anything other than jeans and a shirt, sweatshirt and jacket if it was cold so our non-daylight seeing parts would be safe from sand intrusion.
As it happens, we have a friend whose family owns a house near a beach. Assateague Island to be exact. So I drove to Lara's, was allowed to run inside and use the facilities and then climbed into the Jeep (sigh, I have wanted a Jeep since 7th grade, red, like Don Seel's) and were off to the beach. The trip down was fun, as any trip with friends is. Lara and Kate sang Disney show tunes very loudly, but surprisingly on-key. I took video of them. I was also threatened within an inch of my life that the video better not appear on Facebook, which it hasn't. I like life. We listened to some interesting music, stopped for food and I fell asleep. When we got to the house we quickly dropped out stuff off and went out for a much needed dinner.
We headed to Outback Steakhouse, and there was a bit of a wait. We sat outside and people-watched while waiting. There were some very interesting people there that night. We made fun of some golfer-type men, old people and pretty much anyone who happened by. At one point, a young man came out of the restaurant, picked up one of the decorative rocks in the landscaping (about the size of a small child's fist) and took it back inside. Weird, huh? We thought so. A few minutes later, a woman came out and did the same thing. I think there was some sort of gang initiation going on in there that night; or it was a secret agent thing. "I'll be the one with the rock from the landscaping on my table." So, of course, we picked up our own rock and took it in and placed it on our table when our turn came. We named him Bartlebee. Sadly, no secret agents contacted us about a mission, no gang members tried to tussle with us and the waiter thought we were nuts. I'm pretty sure some secret government operation was aborted that evening and the three of us are now being watched closely by satellites and men hiding in our bushes. The important thing is, we had a laugh.
So now to the actual beach part of the trip. Where we were, there were two options for going on the beach. 1) we could park somewhere and actually walk to the beach, 2) we could take Kate's Jeep out on the beach. There is a section where you are allowed to take your vehicle onto the sand. I was very excited, having seen many a Jame Bond beach car chase in my life. Boromir wasn't so into it though, having been in a James Bond movie, as the bad guy, and died. He was sulky the whole trip. It seems I learn something with every Year of the Birthday event and this time was no exception. For instance, I did not know that you had to let some air out of your tires before taking your vehicle onto the sand. There's a little air station right before the entrance to the beach. I let Lara and Kate handle that. For one thing, they had both done it before and knew what to do, for another, it was Kate's Jeep and I did not want my lack of experience to harm the Jeep. Don Seel would never forgive me.
So we let some air out of the tires and drove out onto the beach. And you know what? It was bumpy! Those movies lie, those people in cars on the beach never bump around like we did! I swear, I'm starting to not trust Hollywood! But besides the bumps, it was awesome! We stopped and got out and Lara danced around. Kate threw something dead at me and I screamed. I took pictures that look like we were in a blizzard, don't know what that's all about. On the way back to the house we saw some ponies!!!!!! Lara and Kate hadn't told me about them before we got there. There are wild ponies on Assateague Island!!!! I was psyched to see more in daylight.
The next day was the biggest beach part of the trip. We got to the beach early-ish and drove around a bit before settling on a place to build the sandcastle. Kate and I had some fancy buckets to make the sand actually look like a castle and we set to work, Lara and I, Kate took pictures and read her book. It was cold. The castle did not take long to build. We made a central tower, four towers inside the walls and several around the wall. We also built a moat that had killer attack sand turtles in it. At this point, Boromir and Captain Jack come storming out of the Jeep. Apparently, Boromir blamed Jack for the two of them not being allowed to make pretzels. Boromir claimed he was much cleaner than a scallywag pirate and had apparently been brooding about this since February. Boromir took possession of the castle, taunting Captain Jack. Well, Captain Jack is not one to take insults lying down, he came out fighting. There followed a battle of epic proportions. They were nearly evenly matched but Boromir had the upper hand as he held the castle. It seemed he would win the day. But Captain Jack has all manner of sea creatures at his disposal and came back with an undead horseshoe crab, breached the wall and snuck up on Boromir while he was enjoying a victory nap. Boromir ended up at the bottom of his own moat and Jack claimed the castle for his own.
After the castle was built I spent some time writing with my toes in the sand. Lara threatened that if I was writing "I love Dave Rhoads 5-15-93 and forever" she would do something terrible to me. So of course I wrote it. I had written that all over her 8th grade yearbook, literally, all over it! I'm still waiting for the something terrible. We collected some very nice shells, not at all like the ones you normally find on a crowded beach. We did not see any ponies on the beach but went searching for them and got a few pictures of them inland. I'm told they come onto the beach when it's warmer. Sigh, guess that means I'll have to go back in the summer with the fleas and the size 2s.