So this weekend we headed to the beach for some fun in the sun. It was just me, G and my sister.
Here are my steps for the beach:
1. Park Car (preferably not paralell parking, which I tend to hit curb or other vehicles and ruin the day)
2. Find Spot on Beach (no rocks plenty of sand hopefully without too many people around)
3. Set up Pop-Up Sun Shade (easy)
4. Have Fun (easy)
5. Lunch (can get dirty)
6. Pack Up (includes washing all toys in the ocean first)
7. Un Pop the Pop-Up Sun Shade (challenge)
8. Load Car Up (almost done!)
9. Go Home (what a beautiful day)
So I drive up the strip to find a parking space (Step #1). There are a lot in the beginning but it's way far away from where we'll be on the beach so I keep going. Then it's bumper to bumper and no spaces empty at all and everyone is looking for that one spot to open up. Then the car in front of me stops in the middle of the road and everyone gets out of the car and they are unloading their beach stuff. What the heck is going on? I honk the horn and they smile and wave at me...not the reaction I was hoping for, which would include them moving their car. So I take the opportunity to do a U-Turn and head back for the far away but available spaces in the beginning. As I complete my U-Turn I see that the space I was next to is not empty--the car that was stopped is gone and the car behind where I was is taking the space....WHAT?! I was only not looking for maybe 10 seconds to turn! Oh well, I am already in the opposite direction anyway so I keep going back to the beginning. Finally I am there and panicking. The spaces are almost filled up already and now I will have to parallel park if I can find a space. Luckily I find a good enough space that I feel comfortable parallel parking in and amazingly I do not hit a curb or any other vehicle.
Next we unload the car:
2 bags full of lunch, towels, clothes, books, etc.
1 pop up hut
1 truck
1 box of sand toys
1 chair for G
2 blankets
1 backpack full of whatever my sister brought with her
1 3-year old
All loaded up we head to find our spot on the beach (Step #2). Wow it's so far away. A few hundred feet into our trek I realized I didn't feed the parking meter. So I have to run back to the car and take care of that. Then back we go. And go. And go. I'm thinking it'll be easier coming back because we'll have eaten lunch and drank our water and juices so we won't have that weight anymore. Finally we get onto the beach but it's still very wet and rocky since the tide isn't out enough, so we sit on some rocks for about a half an hour and slowly move our stuff up a foot at a time until we are finally clear of the rocks.
Next is the pop up shelter, which is super easy, just open up the bag and POP it's up. I love Step #3.
I set up G's chair next to the hut but didn't bring anything me and my sister to sit on so even though the ground is still wet I lay out the blanket so we can sit down and start having fun (Step #4).
And we had lots of fun. G loved running away from the waves, he even took a few mouth fulls of water as he fell a few times, but never cried once, just got back up and laughed. Then we searched from some snails in the tide pools. Then we went back to play in the sand and have lunch (Step #5).
Then it was time to leave so we started to pack up (Step #6) and clean the toys off. Then it was time for the pop up to un-pop (Step #7). This was bad. So very very bad. I wrestled for over half an hour with this stupid thing while beach-goers watched my futile attempts to harness this stupid thing back into the stupid little bag. Covered in sand and mud I finally called it quits. My sister offers to carry it to the car as-is. Then I go to grab the blanket and go...but ohh no. The blanket is SOAKED. It weighs 100 lbs!!! I was very temped to just leave it there especially after the stupid pop up escapade. Again my sister had enough so she offers to carry it too.
We tredge back to the car which is so very very very far away. I offer to my sister for her to wait for me to go get the car and come back for her but she's determined she can handle the heavy awkward load. After a long time she finally can't do it anymore and G and I continue onwards toward the car. Six cars later and we find my car finally. My sister see this and catches up with us.
Now how the heck am I supposed to get this stupid pop up thing into the car? I try once, twice more to un-pop it, but can't. So I just shove it into the back seat with G. I now have a car holding traffic up because she wants my space so I feel rushed trying to load up the car (Step #8) and make sure we didn't leave anything behind. I'm finally ready to go so I wave and smile at the lady waiting in the car holding up traffic. Phew! But wait! I forgot to buckle G into his carseat....so I get out of the car again and mouth "sorry" to the lady in the car holding up traffic while I run around the car and buckle him in. Then I wave and smile at her again while I hop back into the car and go home (Step #9).
What a beautiful day.
By the way, the stupid pop up thing is still not un-poped, it's in my back yard now.
Before my next beach trip I vow to purchase a rolling beach cart to carry all my crap, and I must practice and become master of the pop up shelter.
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