Sixth Annual Fall Beach Trip

Some vignettes from our trip this weekend – this time at Pensacola:

• On the first night, we arrived well after dark. The teens were restless and took a room key and wandered outside a bit. They returned to the room and sat on the ninth floor balcony to share songs they each like with one another, eating Double Stuf Oreos. Then they asked if they could go walking again together. They wandered til midnight. The rest of the trip was the usual low key sniping, but on that first evening they were vibing. I loved it.

• It was extraordinarily windy, and there was a severe rip tide and huge waves. Ragged pale clouds, Halloween spiderweb decorations stretched too thin. The Gulf was mad – biggest waves I’ve ever seen here. The Gulf is normally still and warm as bathwater, but these were waves you could (almost) surf on. I quickly wearied of staying upright – a sandbar made the water shallow. We swam a small bit but stayed together. Sitting in a chair was a bit like sitting by a sandblaster, so we decamped for the pool rather quickly.

• Before the pool, we tried the beach. Liam and I went together to the water first. I tried to teach him how to boogie board in on a wave, but he didn’t ever manage to catch a good one. Craig joined us next, laughing and being thrown about by the huge waves, followed by a skeptical Jack who walked very daintily in and was quite precious about getting wet for a while. The heavy current pushed us west, and I had them line up like ducklings and hold each others’ feet, and we choo-chooed our way back east along the shore, a long chain of limbs, slippery and tossed and pulled away and circling back to fetch the wayward boy. Laughs and playfulness, they are still such fun to play with. Eventually, we had to get out – it was wearing me down just to stay upright in waist deep water.
• The lazy river was a nice contrast. I wedged myself into a tube and floated a bit. A boy would occasionally wander by, float with me a bit, then wander away. I love having strong-swimmer kids this age.

• Each morning I woke before the rest of them. I would dress in the dark, quiet, put my shoes on in the hall so as not to wake them all. I would go downstairs and filled a coffee cup, then take it out for early morning walks along the beach, just me and the sunrise. At points I would perch on the sand and stretch, meditate. At other points I would run.

• We saw little wildlife this time, except some truly raggedy gulls – the heavy wind pulled tufty downy feather bits out from under the smoother outer feathers, so they looked perpetually uncombed. Gulls with bedhead. There were also lots of jellies – no one was stung, so they must have been the non-stinging kind, but they were pretty big – the size of apples. No trailing tentacles, just blobs.
• At our one restaurant lunch, I was denied my margarita at the bar because I did not have my physical drivers’ license with me. I just had a Barq’s – it was no big deal – but I blinked at this waitress as she looked at my clearly-not-20-years-old face and body, my 45 year old husband, my teen children, and my official Louisiana government issued LA Wallet App with my drivers’ license and covid vaccination cards in it, and said she would be violating Florida law to serve me alcohol. It made me chuckle, but I didn’t give her a hard time.
• Craig spent much of the day tossing the football in the sand with whoever would join him. He’s my little sporty kiddo for sure.

• I recently subscribed to the New Yorker, both electronic and the weekly magazine. And I do enjoy it but it is overtaking my life – I read two cover-to-cover on this trip and there are fifty unread magazines stacked on the side table still (maybe not 50 but definitely feels like it!)

We appear to have developed a little habit that we probably should break ASAP. ‘Tis the habit of taking our annual fall beach trip, and then picking up a new furry family member on the way home. We’ve had Jasper a full year now – and on our way home from this trip we picked up our newest family member, a wee 3 month old puppy as yet to be named (perhaps Clio?) It was a surprise for the boys and we had fun pulling into a random driveway in Gonzales, Louisiana and making them pile out of the car, bewildered, while we just said “eh, we’re just picking something up on the way home.” The woman we got her from walked out of the house holding eight pounds of wiggling, frantic Teddy Roosevelt terrier, and handed her over while the realization slowly dawned on the boys’ faces. She rode home in Liam’s lap, and threw up all over him mid-ride, and he was so sweet about it.

We are all obsessed with her, including Jasper who loves having a playmate.