The Day at the Beach...That Wasn't.

After the long and somewhat confusing breakfast with the Elephant Clan, T and I headed to the beach at the State Park.  We had a cooler with pop and Gatorade in the car along with a sheet to sit on, two towels and TWO bottles of sun lotion.  It was a HOT day and the water was in the 70's with 4-6 foot waves.  Perfect conditions for a romp in the lake.

We couldn't turn left from Northland Dr. back onto West River due to the fact that the turn-around thing no longer exists, I assume once they are finished with construction over there the turn-around thing will be back.  So we headed up Plainfield to 96, couldn't get onto 131 from there since construction has that closed too.  We kept going up to Alpine, went across the bridge and right back down onto the highway again toward 131.  Perfect...until we hit a stand still.  The brilliant people at MDOT decided that it would be a great idea to merge three lanes of traffic into one lane...ALL AT ONCE!  By 11:30 we were still sitting on the on ramp and I told T that if he wanted to forget the beach today and just head home and watch the races (NASCAR and Formula 1) that I would understand.  Then the low fuel light came on.   

Four years later when we finally made it past the Ann/Turner and we had three lanes available again we took off and merged uneventfully onto 196.  We were off and running again.  No problem.  We stopped for gas and continued on our way.  It seemed that our major delays were over, until we were in (Dutchtown) on the main road to the park.  It appeared that everyone was interested in going 5mph below the speed limit and since the road had two lanes in each direction, this meant that cars could ride side by side...completely blocking our way.  T's blood pressure was going through the roof at this point.  All he wanted was to go jump in the lake, but he couldn't get TO the lake.  The closer we got to the park the more obstacles were in our path, these included stupid people blocking traffic while waiting for a parking spot, little girls on roller blades jutting out into traffic so as not to hit the person on the bicycle that just stopped abruptly in front of them, and the idiot trying to carry three beach chairs while riding his bike, and failing.

At long last we made it to the beach and parked the car.  T got out and reached in the back seat to grab his change of clothes and then stopped.  There was the cooler, there were the towels and sun lotion, his clothes were not there.  We determined that his swim trunks were nicely folded on the chair in the living room back at home.  We looked across the white sand at the huge whitecaps coming in and all the people in both sand and water.  We watched the wind surfer using the hefty breeze to its fullest extent and then we got back into the car and started the long journey home.

We pulled into the driveway just in time for the start of the Formula 1 race (which we had set up to tape in our absence).  T asked if we should just grab our stuff and turn around and head right back to the beach.  I thought for a moment and decided that something was trying prevent us from going to the beach that day.  I thought we could stay home, watch the races and chill out in the basement and try the beach another day. (Thinking that watching the races would make him happy.)

We unpacked the car but I kept everything together hoping that one day this week we could head over to the lakeshore after work.  We settled down in the basement to watch the NASCAR race knowing the F1 race was being taped upstairs.  It was a good race, the Rousch drivers did very well, except Kenseth but I don't care about him because he is not on my fantasy league team.  Most of my guys did well (poor Michael Waltrip, race after race he is in the wrong place at the wrong time) and Kurt Busch won, Mark Martin came in Third.   During one of the many cautions T flipped the TV over to Headline News hoping we could find out whether Lance Armstrong was able to pull off the 7th championship in the Tour de France.  He did not see anything about Lance but unfortunately he did see who won the F1 race he hadn't watched yet. (!!!!!! = @*$^#%!&^)  Let me tell you, nothing gets him angry faster than hearing the winner before he has seen the race.  Ugh!  We should have just gone back to the beach.

After the race was over he went out back to start working on the back yard while I paid some bills.  Once all the dirt was used up (15 bags worth) and half of the grass seed was down he mowed the front lawn.  He hung the new door in the garage and then found out that if it was hung level the door knob did not line up with the catch on the jam. More tinkering ensued. 

Needless to say that yesterday turned out to be one of those days that we should never have gotten out of bed.  This is why we are determined to make today better.  T gets out of work at 3:30, I am leaving at 3:00 which will get us both home around the same time.  We will then grab the items still packed from yesterday and head back to the beach for a late afternoon dip in the big lake. 

Wish us luck!!!!

This better work.