beach repeat

We’ve been at the beach now for several days and it’s a much slower pace here as compared to our days in Florida.  We have done this same beach vacation every year now since I married Someone.  He has done this vacation every year since he was a little boy.  We stay the same place year after year, and we vacation with Someone’s family – parents, brother, and sisters here at Myrtle Beach, SC.  His mother’s sister’s family used to come too in years past, making a total of eight families of people staying in the large beach house.  The past two years it’s only been five families so the house seems roomier.  It’s a very large house, but by the end of the week people are getting on each other’s nerves.  It’s a whole lot of together time.    

beach house

The ocean is OK, but I have much less appreciation for the sun this year thanks to all that fun with skin cancer last fall and winter.  I like to walk the beach and pick up shark teeth, or thrash around in the waves for a while, but after a few hours of that I get bored.  Someone can be out on the beach all day and be happy as a clam.  In previous years, I’d supervise the girls and play with them in the waves and in the sand.  This year, I just told everyone I have to reduce my exposure to the sun.  If I’m going to be in the sun, I’d much rather be playing golf than sitting or sleeping on the beach.  Someone and his family members all get very dark in the sun and “work” on their tans. 

Today, the girls and I escaped for a while.  Someone played golf with his dad, brother-in-law, and nephew while Erin, Emily, and I went out to lunch and went shopping for a bit.  We stopped at a large  music store – the girls picked out some sheet music and I bought new guitar strings. 

 We also went into a store that reminded me very much of the stores we use to call “head shops” in the 70s.  The store had all sorts of tee shirts, hemp jewelry, biker stuff, hash pipes, roach clips, water pipes, exotic rolling papers, incense, psychedelic lights, and other such stuff.  I met my first husband in a head shop – the only one in the small town where we attended college.  Erin found a couple of tee-shirts she wanted to buy.  It was nice to get away from the family crowd for a while.  Walking into a store like this one brings back a lot of memories.    

They found this tee-shirt and suggested I should buy it for their father since it fits his personality so well (I didn't buy it because he would never wear it).  It especially fits the past few days...it’s time to go home!!  I’m more than ready to hit the road. 

"Someone" we know