Catch a Wave

My life's greatest dream has been to swim in a warm ocean. Well, this weekend I went to Virginia Beach with my wife to celebrate our 10th anniversary a year and 2 weeks late (we were in the process of packing up and moving last year so we didn't have a chance to go away anywhere), and while I wouldn't call the water warm per se, it didn't cause me pain like the water at York or Hampton Beach might cause. In July. Or August. And I was able to swim in it to my heart's content. The waves were bigger than I am used to also. I actually got a big raspberry on my lower back when a ginormous wave caught me off guard and body slammed me into the sand. Fun.

It is off-season so the beach wasn't crowded. We could walk around town and up and down the boardwalk without bumping into people which was nice. There were still a large (and I mean LARGE) number of women who had no business wearing bikinis wearing bikinis, but luckily I had so much sand in my eyes that I could barely see with my contacts.

We did run into a couple of pan handlers. The first was harmless and just seemed a little slow, the second we actually saw twice, once at one end of town and later, three hours later, in a grocery store parking lot. He had the same story the second time... "Me and a friend are stranded here. We went to a church but they said we needed to attend a service before they would give us anything." I had the same story too. I don't have any cash. Which I didn't.

Worse than the pan handlers was the timeshare hawkers. They would sneak up on you. Being all friendly. "Hey! How you guys doing? Did you see this thing going on over there?" The first one we hit asked us if we were both over 28. Well, yeah, I said. My heart hit my liver. And my liver punched back. I gave him his 5 minute shpeal (sp?) and said I wasn't interested.

The next time, "28? I ain't that old!?"

The third time I walked past while waving my left hand frantically in the air, "Naaaaaaaaah."

These were the only times they actually made contact with us. We actually walked near their various booths many times, but managed to avoid eye contact or they had other suckers in their claws. Annoying. I wish I could have just thrown them a dollar to make them go away.

My biggest disappointment of the weekend was that I really wanted to dig a big hole or make a sandcastle, but, man, I just felt stupid doing it without kids around. How weird would it be for me to walk up to a bunch of kids and say, "Hey, can I help you make that?" Too weird. If the weather is close to 80 next Saturday we are going back with the kids. So I can make a sand castle and not be embarrassed.