|
Finally, we were going to be teh spontaneous college students we planned to be all year...we were going to the beach! The plan was to wake up at 7 am and be on the road by 8 (we are teenage girls, we knew to allow time for our coincidentals) and on a two hour drive to Jacksonville Beach. I stole Lizzy's key as insurance because we have learned from experience you can't just call her and knock on her door to wake her up, you ahve to get in there and drag her out of bed! Well, 6 am rolls around and there's knocking on my door. I opened it and gazed out at a fuzzy Lizzy and Anna (who puts on their glasses at 6 am?) telling me to give Lizzy her keys and go back to sleep. Oh shit, we aren't going after all...but then I realize the fuzzy blonde is much too short to be Anna, it's really Courtney. Seems that there were some drunk girls stranded and Courtney needed to borrow Lizzy's car to go pick them up...the beach trip was still on! So an hour later, I get out of bed and pack my backpack, then get distracted online for about 30 minutes (coincidentals remember?) before I go to check that the other 2 are awake...Lizzy, of course, is not. We finally get on the highway about 8:30 and are all totally psyched for the trip! But the beautiful weather promised by Weather.com wasn't coming...for most of the drive we couldn't see 10 feet in front of us thanks to the horrible fog and it wasn't until we were almost at Jacksonville city that we first spotted the sun! But it finally proved to be a fabulous beach day and as we turned off of the 10 west, we set out to reach the beach. Since I was the only one who had been there before, I was designated navigator, only we didn't get directions, so when it was time to find the actual beach, my advice was just look for the sand...that didn't go over too well...but following my instincts (and a road called Beach Blvd.) we found our destination! The day was perfect for sunbathing, a slight breeze so we weren't too hot, and great cellphone signals to call our friends and make them all jealous! Around 3 pm, it started to get very cloudy and cool, so we packed up and considered shopping before heading home...but after loading the car and making friends with a cute lifeguard, the sun came back and we felt guilty about leaving...So we took that lifeguard up on his offer to tour the Red Cross Lifeguard station that we were parked next to. Envision a nice frat house minus alcohol and sitting at the prime location on a gorgeous beach...that's where he lived...anyone else totally jealous? Well, when the lad offered to teach us to kayak, who could resist? Being the adventurer of the gang, I ended up going first, and after wading out into the freezing water, (it's November remember?) I had to jump into the front of the boat. Now, any girl who wear a bikini knows that the bottoms of those things don't like to stay up when you propel yourself quickly out of the water...so in order not to moon the boy, I popped onto the kayak backwards and swizled around. First problem solved. So we start paddling through the waves and talking about general things (such as how he lived in Spain for 3 years...) when the wind starts to pick up and the waves get super choppy! We hit one swell and our kayak points up at a 90 degree angle...and I fly backwards into lifeguard's lap! Luckily, the boat corrects itself and we keep going farther into the ocean...but as we start hitting more and more choppy waves, he interrupts the conversation to ask me if I can swim...uh oh, what exactly is going to happen next? His advice is no matter what happens, when we hit a wave, just put my paddle in my lap and hold on to the bottom of the boat really tight and we should ride that wave into shore. Well, thats a great idea in theory...but when we really did hit that wave, I was in the middle of telling some story, and it was alot stronger than he expected, so we were both caught off guard. A few seconds later, I bop my head on the inside of the kayak...in stuck in the water underneath it! My brain is actually able to function with that much salt water in it, and I swim down and out the side and bob up in the water next to the freaking out lifeguard. He goes into total rescue mode, making sure I'm breathing, checking once again I can swim, trying to flip over the kayak so I can hold onto it, etc. all the while I'm threading water and laughing, because I know this would ONLY happen to me! We slowly make our way back to shore, swimming this time because I really didn't have enough of a death wish to get back in that boat, and confront freaked out Anna and Lizzy. Supposedly they kept seeing the boat and lifeguard, but for a long time after our flip, they couldn't find me. Needless to say, the lifeguard decided it wasn't really the best day for kayaking, which was good for Lizzy because she wouldn't have gotten into that thing after my adventure anyway, so we headed back to the Red Cross house with him and met the eternal beach bum who congratulated me on my "awesome ride"! (This guy was a lifeguard in his late 30s who invoked a David Hasslehopf "Baywatch" image in me...only with far less brain cells thanks to alcohol.) We hung out for about another hour listening to his guy's stories and found out that he has a friend who writes books and short stories based on their adventures! Creepy... Later, a typical California surfer lifeguard came out and we all gwaked at his PERFECT hair! It was bleach blonde and as long as Anna's, but compared to her windswept do, it was perfectly set in place, and look soft as a baby's! Soon, the group of lifeguards we gathered were hounding us to get a hotel and stay the night to party with them...and I literally mean hounding us...they even called over some guy who's parent own a hotel to find out prices, etc. That became our cue to fake hunger and head out...they seemed a little too desperate, I guess November doesn't attract the beach clientle they have most of the rest of the year...After a quick shopping trip for matching Jacksonville Lifeguard hoodies, we set out for home at 5:30....and 2 hours and 4 sets of directions later, we finally found the 10 west and got on the real road home. (That 70 mile roundabout of Jacksonville city was thanks to Anna's curse...she mentioned while we were setting out about the combination of my general bad luck and her back luck with cars...) But we finally got home, all crispy red and full of memories...I love spontaneous road trips! |
|
