Imagine this. You’ve been wandering for days, searching for something, not quite sure what. Hours of driving, good humor slowly dwindling to civility. Weeks of adventure and looking forward start to feel stale and talk of calling it quits start to happen more often (at least for one or two people, names withheld….) and then on a whim you decide to drive to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Another weird spit of land, or string of land to be more accurate, surrounded by water. You arrive at your RV park, something out of a David Lynch movie, but nicer, wedged between the old highway and the new, 150 yards total. All sand, no credit cards, cash only, please. No laundry or showers or internet. You stop at the STOP sign and call the number provided. Ten minutes or so later a Jimmy Buffet character comes along in his golf cart with his dog, Daisy, next to him. He guides us to this small slice of sand in between a couple mongo RVs, tells us to stop by the office tomorrow to pay, waves and takes off. We set up and slowly walk past the 30 or so RVs already parked, many of them actually planted, to the end of the site, maybe 80 yards away, wait for the one or two cars driving slowly across the old highway and walk onto the beach. Miles and miles of beach. Not Pacific coast crazy waves crashing beach, but slowly lapping Atlantic coast beach. Because it’s off season there are only a hundred or so people and a few dogs on the beach. The three of us look at each other and breathe and smile and leave our shoes in a pile on the beach and begin to walk…. Right now we’re slowly getting ready to walk about 300 yards down the beach to a place called The Black Pelican for dinner. We could cook, but sometimes it just feels right to be out. We’ve already talked to the office and extended our stay for another night or two. Our bikes are unpacked and ready to go. We like (yeah, yeah, probably love) each other again. Life is good.
We’ve already decided we’re going to spend a couple of days here. Of course the only coffee shop around with WIFI will only let you use a battery operated computer, and my old thing has to be plugged in at all times, so I’m going to be blogless for a couple of days…
Yesterday we spent ALL DAY at the beach… It was FANTASTIC!!! For the first time since Lily was born I actually put on a bathing suit and didn’t care!!! We started the day by riding bikes and then set up our beach chairs in the sand and just hung out. We walked and collected shells and got in the water. As the day progressed it got pretty hot, so I moved my chair into the water and sat and read with the waves rushing over my feet… for hours … I’m reading this book my mom’s been passing around called Cutting for Stone. I’ve just started it and it’s already pulled me in. The only times in my life when I become totally unavailable to my family is when I’m reading a really good book. Good thing we’re on vacation… Unfortunately Cork didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as Lily and I. When it gets hot, Cork gets, well, nasty and infantile. We kind of have an unspoken deal on this trip that if anyone is miserable because of where we are, then we move on. By the end of the day I/we realized that if Cork was going to spend most of the next day inside with the air conditioner on and still miserable, then we should go. So today after running a few errands and having a little beach time, Lily and I reluctantly said goodbye to the beach.
I’ve said it before and I’ll probably say it again, our family is different, and in many ways better, when we’re on a beach. (Except for Cork when it’s hot…) Lily recognized that this time, too. When we arrived at our current campsite in New Bern, NC, beautiful site along the river where we were immediately driven inside by the mosquitoes, it started to rain. Lily cried in frustration over leaving a place that engaged her and being in a place that didn’t. She said it was the same feeling as us pulling her out of San Francisco to go on this stupid trip to begin with, and she missed her friends and her dancing and her animals. I could absolutely feel her pain… ouch…
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| Ahhhh.... |
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| Beaching it |
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| Just a bridge from a car |
