To the beach

Many people escape to the beach to relax. We find that it allows us to have exhilarating new experiences, such as worrying about things we don't have to worry about at home -- being knocked over by enormous waves, being attacked by sharks, being beaten by four-year-olds at Putt-Putt, etc. This time, we took wise precautions, and stayed off the Putt-Putt courses.* 


Luckily the only shark we saw on our recent trip to the beach was flying high above the water and attached to a long string, which was tied firmly to a brightly colored beach umbrella. Still, to be safe, I kept well near the shore, although in my opinion one is only completely safe from sharks well inland, such as Idaho (whose state motto could be, though perplexingly is not, "Not one shark attack since statehood in 1890!")


We did see a number of dolphins swimming offshore. Two of them, likely young siblings, were goofing around, and we predicted that the dad dolphin would have to get stern with them: "You two cut it out, or we're turning around right now!"


Another dolphin, possibly imported from Sea World to entertain the tourists on the dolphin-watch boats, showed off by doing a complicated double twister above the water, after first making sure the dolphin-watch tourist boat was well out of sight.


Plenty of humans were engaging in acrobatics, too, as they attempted to navigate the intensely hot sand by touching it as little as possible. For some, this involved walking on tiptoe; others preferred the "Remember the Alamo!" approach, whereby they ran, yelling, at top speed across the sand, sometimes unable to stop before making contact with their, or a stranger's, beach umbrella. 


We stayed in a Victorian bed-and-breakfast, which we found out after booking did not actually include a breakfast of any kind. This was fine with us, as the walk to a breakfast place was one of the few acts of physical exercise we were able to achieve on this trip. It was too hot to do much of anything else besides complain about how hot it was, and this seemed to be a popular pastime among beachgoers:


Beachgoer #1: Hot enough for ya?


Beachgoer #2: Yep.


Beachgoer #3: Remember the Alamoooooooooo! (crash)


The obvious way to deal with the heat was to simply remain in the ocean; at least, this WOULD have been the obvious thing to do had not the water been cold enough to engage in a little off-season ice fishing, and if the waves had been quietly lapping at the shoreline instead of threatening to engulf even Idaho.


In the midst of all this extreme nature, the Hero announced: "I think I'll go surfing."


I immediately endeavored to talk him out of it, in a very subtle way so that I would not appear to be trying to talk him out of it. 


"Have we ever discussed where you would like to be buried?" I said. "This might be a good time."


But he was of the opinion that it could not be that dangerous, as he never had to sign a waiver when renting a board. They probably figured surfing was less dangerous than wearing the required beach tags with the threatening safety pins.


But back to surfing.


I felt that the best place to surf was Sunset Beach, where waves rarely exceeded the size of waves in the average home bathtub. This suggestion was ignored.


In the end, the waves, the lateness of the hour, and development of an enormous headache on my part meant that we both decided to leave the beach before any surfing could be accomplished. Plus, they were all out of surfboards at the rental place.


I had NOTHING to do with that, although it does give me an idea for next time...




*The Hero wishes to clarify that HE has never been beaten by a four-year-old at Putt-Putt.**


**Because he always pays them off first.