“So I was thinking that for our day in Charleston, since it’s going to be such nice weather we may want to make it a beach day. Your thoughts?” Tom tilts his head towards Joey and I in the passenger seats.
“Beach day! Oh man yes! Beach, beach, beach!” I yelled from the back seat.
“Joey?” Tom asks.
“Do you hear that back there? Dude, I can’t say no now.” He laughs and I have a huge smile on my face.
“Alright, beach day in Charleston. Good.” Tom claps his hands once to signal the confirmation of the plan.
I love the beach. Every summer for my whole life I’ve been on a beach for at least a week somewhere. I grew up without a back yard pool, air conditioning or cable TV. I know, right? But I survived it and here I am today GOING TO THE BEACH!!! Joey, Tom and I indulged in a bucket of Long Island Iced Tea last night with Greg and his lady friend, Amy, so I was prepared for the possibility of building a sand castle. Nice.
However, these buckets of L.I.T. made for a late start the next morning. We were glad for the extra sleep and took our time leaving not particularly excited for the three hour drive ahead of us. We are on a road trip though and sometimes you have to drive during the best sun tanning hours because you decided to stay up late the night before. But never fear! When we arrived at 5:00 the sun was still high in the sky and the water was very warm. Joey and I made it down to the beach and set up a place for the three of us to sit. Tom had to run back to the car to change so we walked down to the water to play in the waves and keep an eye out for him.
The further out you go in the water the more chance you have to let your body be pushed and pulled around by the waves. They weren’t giant waves and the beach was shallow enough that we could stand on the bottom and still be up to our necks so it was a ton of fun to try to ride the wave in and then swim back out just a little further than you were before. Joey and I spotted Tom and tried to get out of the water before he passed our spot, but getting out of the ocean is a little harder than running across a meadow or something. We chased him a little ways up the beach and then when we were all settled with our sandals holding down the corners of our orange beach blanket/tapestry we walked back out to the water and had a great time rolling in and out with the currents and waves.
The day was rolling on and it was time to head to a campground to get set up so we headed out of the water prune-y and covered with sticky salt and sand. We drove over to a campground we had heard was a good spot in a lovely gated park. As soon as we had showered we set up our tents then hopped in the car to head back to town. We were ready for dinner and had picked out a place known for its seafood called Crab Shacks.
We walked in and sat at a booth. These were no ordinary booths though, there was a big blue bucket in the middle of the table for all of your shells and lemon rinds and whatever else you might not want sitting in front of you at a dinner table.
We had checked out the menu beforehand so we had an idea of what we wanted. There was a beach style cornucopia filled with steamed oysters, crab legs, shrimp, corn on the cob and new potatoes they served in an overturned pail dumping it all out on the plate for you. We were torn between that and the barbeque platter which had pulled pork, chicken and beef on it. In the end we decided to order grits ‘n’ gravy, the bucket thing and fried shrimp which they made a big deal out of on their menu and it was all amazing.
They were trying to close up though so we finished our meal and headed back to the campground all tired and ready to hit the hay. When we had pulled in earlier and told the lady at the gate we wanted passes to camp in tents she laughed. None of us got what she was laughing at so she straightened her face and told us it was going to be really hot. We assured her the temperature must go down at night by some substantial margin and that we would be fine. She shrugged her shoulders and pointed us in the right direction. Come to find out, that lady was right, it was really hot.
Until next time America.
-Sarah
Until next time America.
-Sarah
