Life on the beach

    Our first day living on the beach was filled with all the beach things. We rose with the sun and rotated our time swimming, body surfing, boogie boarding, digging in the sand, walking the shoreline, and skim boarding. Also, the surf had already claimed my new favorite hat purchased just two days before in New Orleans. RIP awesome hat. Needless to say, we were exhausted by noon. 

Sand castles were built. 

By this time our lack of water for hygiene needs was becoming a real concern. Jason took the big boys into town to purchase jugs of water and a host of other things we "needed," like a dedicated drying rack, even though nothing ever really dried there. Marcus and I stayed back at the camper in the blazing sun and roaring wind, still enjoying the novelty of where we were. This novelty started to turn slightly panicky as an hour turned to almost three without the return of the rest of our family, absolutely no way to contact anyone, and almost no one around to help if the need arose. A creepy guy in a pickup who stopped and talked to me for way too long, crystalized the desolation of our location. Finally, the Suburban appeared in the hazy distance, filled with my sense of safety, 23 gallons of water, some flip flops, and a clothes drying rack. Not that anything ever dried. 

While I knew that sand was going to be an issue at this stop, I had no clue just how big of a problem it really would be. I can not possibly overstate how much sand was now covering us and everything we owned. At first I tried to just keep the camper swept and made everybody sweep their feet at the door. I also covered the camper's floors in towels. But these measures were not nearly enough as the sand was super fine and the humidity was borderline spontaneous rain inside and outside the camper at all times. Like I said before, nothing ever really dried. My hair was damp the entire time we were on the beach. Every time you tried to pull clothes on it was exactly like you'd stepped out of a shower, said, nope, I don't need a towel, and then regretted even trying to use clothes. All the screens on the camper were covered in condensation and parts of the camper that were in the shade were sweating even in the extreme heat of the day. One morning I woke up and the side of my head that was facing the window was totally wet. Poor Lucas opened a six pack of Oreos and by the time he got to numbers five and six they were too soggy to eat. Jason found that two bags of chips that had been opened the day before were no longer just not crunchy, but he could bend the chips without them breaking. It was just so so humid.  

Sand floor mats.

Anyway, necessity is the mother of invention and we discovered that a five gallon pail with ocean water in it was the best way to enter the camper. A protocol was put into place where you dipped one foot (or any part of your body really) into the bucket, swished it around removing most of the sand, and then put that foot into the camper. Dangling out of the camper, you then swished your other foot before making your way inside. It was more effective than the first method and probably saved our sanity for the next day and a half. 

That night, after I picked up beach trash, Jason dug a pit in the sand and we sat for as long as we could stand around a blustery beach fire. This is when I began to notice just how windy things were. As we sat in the twilight, ripples of sand blew past us, coating our bodies one last time before we would go in and sleep like incredibly uncomfortable dead horses.