How We Overcame the Dementors and Had a Great Memorial Day

 

Several weeks ago I had the idea that we really needed a day trip to the beach.  We have often done one in the early summer, but this time I had the brilliant idea that if we went on Memorial Day the dads could come too.  Well…at least it seemed like a brilliant idea at the time.  I had no idea that we would be risking multiple dementor attacks that would threaten to suck all of the joy out of our lives.

The first round of attacks came as we woke our kids up at 6:30 am Monday morning.  We are not known for early starts (mostly the “me” part of “we”) and so we were resolved that we would have the car already  loaded, wake early and get right out of the door.  Unfortunately the kids we woke were not our normal charming and well-behaved kids—these kids were cranky, whiney, and ornery.  By the time we had made it into the car at 7:45 I felt like I had run an emotional marathon through a field of mud already.  In self-defense I passed out left-over easter chocolate and told everyone to eat up.  (Everyone eats chocolate after a dementor attack, don’t they?)  Then I let everyone put on headphones and turn on a movie.  The silence on the trip was blissful.

As we passed through Wilmington and drove over the bridge onto Wrightsville Island I started having an inkling that our problems might not be over yet.  Sure enough, every parking lot that we came to was full, overflowing, and had cars waiting in a line for a parking space.  We could not figure out what to do, and that was a major dementor moment.  (And we’d already eaten all of the chocolate!)  Eventually we decided to pull into a small access with no parking, unload all of the people and paraphernalia, and let the dads figure out the parking problem.  They ended up “renting” someone’s driveway for the day and much to our surprise and happiness, soon joined us on the beach.

Us and half of the population of North Carolina.

 

Our third  crisis of the day occurred as we walked onto the beach and passed the lifeguard stands.  The beaches we normally go to do not have lifeguard stands, and while we appreciated how much safer our bodies were going to be during the day because of said lifeguards, we also had a sneaking suspicion that our lunch plan of hamburgers cooked on portable grills (which we’ve been wanting to try out for a while now) was not going to be possible.  Even though we moved up the beach as far from the lifeguards as we could stand to haul our stuff, we were still pretty sure that if we lit the grills there would be enough smoke to get us arrested. 

So much for lunch.

Fortunately, everyone was by this time distracted enough by the vision of beautiful ocean and very hot sand, and agreed absentmindedly to eat whatever snack food was available and call that good.  And so commenced one of the oddest lunches we’ve ever experienced, including sweet bread from costco, goldfish, pudding, applesauce, clementines, sliced cheese, and a few donuts, honeybuns, and lukewarm pre-cooked hotdogs.  All washed down with capri suns and soda.  A culinary feast it was not.

The ocean was absolutely beautiful, and while the water was initally cold we finally adjusted and had lots of fun playing in it. 

 

We also had fun while not in the water.

(if you’re wondering why Russ’s head is not in this picture, it’s because right as I was getting ready to take the picture I realized that he’d thrown the little white bocci ball exactly between my feet, and I was a little worried about my personal safety!)

 

In the end we had a lovely day and it all worked out just fine.  But next Memorial Day???

Next Memorial Day I believe you’ll be able to find us at the neighborhood pool, and then having some kind of yummy meal at home. Both with easy parking.  We’ll leave Memorial Day at the beach to the other million and a half people!

 

PS—We are obviously not as good at beach day trips as week-long beach vacations, since we all came home sunburned from forgetting to reapply the sunscreen.  Ouch!