"..down to the Crystal Coast"

Dan has a character that he does in the van occasionally. His name is Rupert. He’s this gay guy who sounds like it just kills him to utter each and every word. In most of Rupert’s situations he’s calling a new boss to ask if it would be OK to delay his first day of work because he and some dudes were out at the lake and got sunburned as hell. It’s a hilarious bit.
Well, I’m feeling ya today Rupert. Not the gay part, but the sunburn. Grace, Nathan and I went to my buddy Barry Herndon’s place down on the Crystal Coast again this weekend and had an even better time than last, just a few weeks ago. We tried to get it all in.
We got there late Friday afternoon and watched the sun go down over some Chinese and a couple of bottles of Zin. Grace and I sat upstairs on the deck and listened to some more Todd. (Notice a pattern here lately, with all the Todd?)

 

We woke up Saturday morning with a lot of things on the plate. Let’s see, we had to ride Barry’s golf cart, we had to go to the beach, go to the Simpson’s movie, go to a sand sculpture contest, go eat good local seafood and whatever else we could cram in. We got it all done too, without too much of a hitch. When we got to the beach the waves were pretty rough so we didn’t stay long, maybe an hour or so. On the way home we checked out Fort Macon for a quick Civil War history lesson.

 

We went out for lunch, which was only $26 for 4 slices of pizza and a salad at a place called Michelangelo’s (he musta thought each slice was a masterpiece!).
Dropped off Mom, then Nathan and I went to the 2:15pm movie. I got out of the car and immediately heard a huge BAMMM!! Some guy in one of them trucks that you gotta have a ladder to get into was speeding in the parking lot and took off the whole front end of a small Cadillac, no doubt ruining a vacation for the family of four inside. No one appeared to be hurt, but man! It scared the shit outta me.
The movie was great and we stopped by the grocery store for limes and cookies and after a quick stop at the ABC Superstore we were headed back. (That was a damn nice liquor store, yo! Wished I could’a spent more time in there!) By then it was 4-ish and we had just enough time to check out some sand sculptures and go eat.

 

We headed down to Salter Path, got out and looked at a pretty pitiful line of entries and in 10 minutes were walking back to the car and headed to Emerald Isle to eat at Jordan’s. That pretty much knocked us back a notch or two, so after a couple of tequila drinks we were down for the count.
Sunday morning about 11:30 we hit the beach again, hoping for calmer seas. We were in luck. They were perfect, great for floating out a ways and awesome for boogie boarding more inland. We had so much fun that we didn’t bother stopping for sunscreen or nothing. I DID sit for a minute or two and had a beer, but I was right back out there in it till 2:30. We thought our superhuman powers would protect us from the sun but of course, we were oh so wrong.
Already feeling it as we cleaned up to leave, I decided to have a little Margarita type thingy. Hmmm…not too bad…I’ll have another…(repeat sentence times 6). So needless to say Grace had to drive my drunk ass home and listen to me play with the radio all the way back (although I did settle in on a couple of CD’s, Faces “Nod’s as Good as Wink”, and a best of Beach Boys disc) AND listen to Nathan who’s (ADHD) medicine we had forgotten. I don’t know which one of us was worse.
Anyway we made it back in one piece and greeting us at home was not only our world traveling and world saving son, Will but Grandama (Grace’s Mom) too! Who knew she was coming?
After a quick hello and hug for everyone, I walked in and turned the radio on just in time to hear Greg Rice on 96 Rock FM talk up our show this weekend at Moore’s Square. We’re opening for Soul Asylum and our slot is at 6:15. Y’all are coming aren’t you? Maybe I won’t be so beet red by then.