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When I signed up for this Sunday afternoon at the beach, I didn't know I would be going on an adventure to the wild animal park, but Jacksonville attracts all sorts of characters...It was an interesting day, so let's start from the night before. Lizzy and I had spent a beautiful day on the front lawn of VSU soaking up the sun and enjoying the sudden supply of hot, shirtless boys that had not existed in our college town prior to that afternoon. Deciding this weather would be better spent around a body of water a little more ample than the fountain spraying a mist on us, we called up some buddies and arranged a trip to the beach in the morning. Now, we said we were going to head out around 9, knowing full well that with Lizzy, Anna, and I around it would be closer to 9:30, but our 2 other companions were military boys...punctuality is their middle name and for some reason we were meant to be outside Langdale at 8:47 am, bags packed and ready for a quick breakfast at the UC...so I wake up to my phone at 8am and after explaining to my mother that we aren't leaving for an hour (can we say over protective?) I try to rouse Lizzy...only to hear her mumble that she talked to Jordan last night and we aren't leaving till 11 now...I wasn't sure if this was the truth or if the gal was just trying to have a little more sleep, but if they did show up, I figured they'd call and we'd wake up then...I went back to bed. When we finally did hit the road, it was closer to 12pm and we were almost without a Lizzy because both Anna and I had to drag her out of bed to come with us, promising her she could return to sleep while on the beach. The drive there was uneventful, or at least in the eyes of Anna who is still recovering from her horrific car wreck last weekend, and since we went in Chris' car, there were no random flashes of lights or fires from the engine as might have happened in the Volvo...we were all glad for this. The main problems occured when we got to the beach at 2pm and remembered it is in the midst of spring breaks...this place was crowded! Due to a struggle with the parking situation, we had to forgo sitting by the lifeguard stand (much to my dismay since you know I am now famous there not only as the kayak girl, but also as the homeless girl) and ended up much farther down the beach on cold sand...is it very obvious that the lads took control of picking out the spot? Well the first order of business for Lizzy and myself was to locate a restroom, but as we walked along the boardwalk, nothing appeared accessible, so I had the grand idea to go into a hotel...only to pick the one hotel with a miniscule lobby and no way to slide past the front desk worker and illegially use their restroom. Instead we rode up the elevator and exited the stairs and gave in to use the public beach restrooms like all the other commoners...eww. When we returned to the "campsite" we found poor Anna all alone. Seems that the boys had used her to load on their sunscreen (over 2 layers of fake tan...but that's a whole other story...) then took the football off on a chick hunt...Oh well, they would just have disturbed our laying out anyway. After a little while, Anna and I decided to go in the water...but once we got over the initial paralyzing shock (ever heard of those people in Michigan or somewhere who jump into a lake on New Year's totally naked...I felt like I was getting worse hypothermia than them) we just went for a walk along the sand instead. And came across the first memeber of our petting zoo, a prarie dog being walked along on a leash! At first I thought it was a ferret or a squirrel, and really it looks much like one of them, but minus a tail of any form. It was very cute and we thought it couldn't be topped on this day...but we forgot that we still had many hours on the beach and I would have a shitty story if it ended here, so the adventure continued. The girls all learned to play football reasonably well (okay, so the only person needing to learn was me, but what can I say, I've been a dancer for 14 years, football doesn't really fit into that lifestyle!) and on a moment of boredom, Anna was lured down to the water with Chris and Jordan to play...until the pushed her into the waves! Thus began the war where the boys caught both me, then Lizzy and carried us kicking and screaming into the ocean...it's not as cold when you hit it all at once, but it did come as a shock since I was suspended a height above it initially. Losing the boys to thei hunt again, we spent more time relazing in the sun, and through some odd power I have posessed this year, a man sat beside us and began playing his guitar and singing! It was a wonderfully relaxing time, I'm definitely not going to the beach again unless I can guarentee a trubadore to be around. But all good thimgs must come to an end and he packed up to leave, only to have the rest of Old MacDonald's crazy farm walk by in his place. Three large black men passed our blanket, one holding a miniture teacup poodle to mimic his own afro, and the other two sporting boa constrictor neck ties...live boa constrictors! I'm just hoping the puppy wasn't being saved as dinner or anything...To wrap up our beach playing, we stole the lads football and began tossing it around next to a group of hot boys...jackpot! A couple of them keep running through and intercepting the ball...the only problem was that between one of their visits, another beach boy got the idea and tried to get into our game. Since he looked like a child we babysat, we told him he had to get the ball from us...and after 5 minutes he finally picked up a fumble and whipped out the cell to get our number...umm, were not from near here babe. Oh nevermind says the boy, but we can't let him leave without knowing the age...a very happy 15...at least we played a part in helping his SB tale to the middle school buddies back home. {"Yea man, I played football with these 3 hot college chicks...dude, they wanted my number, they were all over me...blah blah" don't you hate how little kids lie so much?) We finally gave up on the sun around 6 and decided to finish off the day with dinner at Joe's Crab Shack. Who should we see on the way there but Megan, a Centennial grad with Lizzy and a friend at VSU! They even gave us their place on the wait list at Joe's because they had left when they heard of the hour and half wait and didn't cancel it! So we only ended up waiting 5 minutes and even made friends with 3 other VSU gals in the line! All in all it was a strange but very fun day! And it's probably for the best that it wasn't as crazy or illegial as my past 2 trips to the beach...we're going again next weekend when Miss Alabama comes to visit and I know she wants to cause some trouble, so one "quiet" weekend isn't bad! |
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