Early this morning while we were all sleeping, Scott drove to the airport to catch a flight back home for a family wedding. I stayed here with the boys. Since our common sense was miles up in the sky far from earshot and out of site we were bound for adventure. As most of you know, Scott’s the planner, the logic and the Miss manners of our family. The day was ours, no rules, no worries and no common stress!
I played on the computer in the living room as sleepy little boys wandered into the living room. Without any preparation, packing or planning, they put on they’re shorts and we loaded up into the van. No shoes, No shirts, No cares!!!
I withdrew twenty dollars out of the ATM deciding that adventures usually call for cash and not debit cards. I pulled up to the stoplight and looked over at Tommy. “North or South?” “North”, Tommy replied. We were off!!!
I drove for awhile, we stopped on the side of the road and spent three dollars on a watermelon from a family selling them out of the back of their beat up Chevy pickup (what we did with this watermelon is a blog for another day). We gave them a five and told them to keep the change.
We loaded back up and drove another twenty miles up the coast, not heading for any particular destination, just heading and watching for an adventure to unfold. Then we saw a sign for an island, an island with a beach. Not one beach but seven the sign said. “Who wants to go to the beach?” I got a chorus of “Me’s.”
The road to the beach was long, so we stopped anytime we saw anything of interest. I wanted to let the boys steer our adventure today, so we pulled over anytime they saw anything they wanted to investigate. This lead to pulling over six times on the way to the beach.
A pier that was torn apart in Hurricane Charley that had never been repaired called for an immediate U turn…
and a potty break with some strong encouragement by some older brothers.
Tommy saw this tree inhabited by a homeless man and decided he probably wanted the coconut we had just ran over. I backed up and we picked up the coconut, I tucked a five dollar bill in it and Tommy put it near his front door. We pulled back onto the road on a high, I was starting to feel like “Mama Gandhi.”
A few more miles and Finn cried out stick, stick, stick. Yeah Finn, there’s like four hundred sticks out there, its a wildlife preserve. He got louder and more frantic, so remembering that we were in no rush, I pulled off once more into the ditch. After carefully selecting the very best one, we loaded it up into the van and pulled back onto the road.
Our next stop was within a mile, it was a popcorn stand on the side of the road. I admit this seems like a strange business concept, but I gave him credit, It was ninety six degrees out today and he was selling popcorn on the side of the road out of a makeshift stand. From the sight of his dilapidated stand, sales hadn’t been going very well, so we decided to give him some business. I thought one big bag of popcorn would be more than enough to give us
all a little snack. However, some of us had other plans.
Mom, why would someone put up a sign that says No Beach Access? Hmmmmmm… Probably because there
is a secret beach down there and they don’t want tons of crazy families with loud children spoiling it. I slammed on the breaks, some popcorn flew up into the front seat and I cranked the wheel. We meandered a ways and then I saw it…
BINGO, secret hidden beach discovered. You can’t trick adventurous explorers like us, nope, sorry, Mama Gandhi and the hooligans one, crabby rich ocean front property owners, zero…
We win!!! A hidden treasure just out of site of the
rule following logical tourists, but not us. Not us because, we live on the edge, and I like it (I may have changed my mind if we had our van towed, but we didn’t, so I
love being adventurous).
Since we’re free spirits today, we did cartwheels like girls…
No, we did cartwheels
better than girls.
And you know what Skin Cancer Society? We didn’t even wear any sunscreen. Because
I believe in a little vitamin D synthesis (I better have that right because, A, I just told off the Skin Cancer Society, if one really exits, and B, I’m in nursing school and just finished a vitamin chapter last semester)
And we put shells in our hair because…
Because… I actually have no idea why we put shells in our hair. But in our defense it was fun and you have no qualifications to judge us, unless you have ever actually put shells in
your hair.
And because putting shells in our hair isn't strange enough, we put seaweed in our hair too.
And because I don’t believe in letting one child have all the fun, I gave baby Petey his very own piece of seaweed. I know many of you moms might be reaching for your very own hand sanitizer right now, but seaweed has many healing properties and apparently it tastes good too because he ate some.
Tommy gathered plenty of sharp sticks to play with and because he is such a loving big brother…
He shared one with Finn. Sword fighting with pointy sticks on private property with no sunscreen on you say? Yup, that's us…
laughing in the face of danger (and sharp barnacle covered sticks)
Today, we leap frog over logic…
while a crazy photographer captures…
every second…
of the death defying leap!
Today, we navigate over the norm…
and are…
victorious!
Today, we dance over danger…
with very very…
sharp sandy feet!!!
And we break dance in the surf, because… well, because we feel like break dancing in the surf!
And today we believe in signs, like these four birds that clearly symbolize my four angels and the way we are flying and free today!
And when we got bored, we returned to the ever popular sharp stick and this time we turned it into…
What else? A sharp stick chair of course. Notice the naked boy in the ocean. Naked because he got sand in his shorts. What an incredible world this would be if we could all just take our shorts of every time they got full of sand. Well, today we are living in that world.
Unfortunately, we weren’t all living in that world today. This sole intruder of our private beach was kind enough to avert her eyes when she snuck up on us. In the spirit of our not holding back, when the boys giggled and pointed, I took a picture for them so they could giggle and point when they read this one day.
We followed our intruder down the beach and around a corner and found this sign…
and this one…
and this one. Hmmmmm… maybe this explains why our secret beach was deserted. Just to laugh in the face of danger, I went down to the ocean and dipped my feet in and taunted the so called “dangerous currents.”
After our walk, we found our way back to the van. We loaded back up for one more excursion (to be blogged about later) and then headed back South.
About ten miles in, someone from the backseat announced that they had to go to the bathroom. We rounded a corner and this guy appeared. Thank you higher powers, or Amberjack Sanitation, thank you. Although as you can imagine, we are not opposed to roughing it on the side of the road, but I’m sure the other tourists appreciated that we used an actual facility, even if it wasn’t really ours to use.
As we made our way back over the draw bridge and through the toll booth, Gavin asked “Mom, do you think that toll worker is wearing pants today?” What? I forgot that several years ago I had convinced him that toll workers didn’t wear pants to work. “Nope, I know he wasn’t, I saw when he bent down to pick up my quarter.”
Tommy spied some Spanish moss on a tree in someone’s front yard. Hmmmm… we played on a private beach, used someone’s porta potty, so I couldn’t hardly argue. Of course you can check out these people’s Spanish moss, as long as they aren’t home.
The next roadside destination the boys insisted on checking out was a haunted house. Unfortunately, in order to get to the haunted house, one had to pass a small swamp adorned with this sign. Alligators? Oh that’s all, I think we can handle it, we’re Floridians after all.
It was determined that this 1907 Bunk House was definitely haunted.
The ghost hunters confirmed it when as they peeked through a crack. Ghosts, Alligators, Private Property, Strange Popcorn Salesmen, Inappropriately Dressed Toll Booth Workers? We’re not afraid!
So the next time the rest of the world tells you to follow the rules or just try to fit in, or no entrance…
Go for it, You might be steps away from finding
your very own secret beach.
