There's sand EVERYWHERE!

        This was the morning that I woke up with wet hair just from sleeping next to the window. Gah. 

Marcus and Samus were pretty well sun burned from the previous day, so naturally we upped our parental sun screen monitoring. Better late than never we thought. Something new that day though was that when you applied sun screen, you also exfoliated at the same time due to the ever present sand coating that encased your body. We also ate a lot of sand in our meals that second day.    

In the morning, after watching gobs of giant trucks loaded down with fishing gear pass us for a day and a half, Jason and I forced Lucas into walking down the beach to ask one of the couples exactly what they were catching. (Lucas is still in the force-him-to-do-everything phase. It's a lot of fun.) They told us they were mostly catching "baby sharks." I'm still not certain whether he meant actual baby sharks or just small sharks. Either way it was a little bit concerning that so many people seemed to be fishing for these "baby sharks" but the man assured us that they were mostly "past the first sand bar". The first sand bar is where we spent most of our time playing in the water. 

Lucas having so much fun.
(Note the sand coating on the table. We wiped that up every morning.)

Later that day, the same guy stopped and told us that we should drive down and check out Small Shell Beach around the 15 mile mark and Big Shell Beach at the 30 mile mark. Craving a little bit of air conditioning, we gladly hopped into the Suburban and headed down the beach. Not entirely obvious at the time was that when we hopped into the car we also drug in five to ten pounds of the softest beach sand, free of charge.

        Making our way down the coast was slow and grew more nerve wracking with each passing mile. Jason was regularly freaking out about getting stuck and had his hackles pretty high by the time we reached Small Shell Beach. At one point he declared he was done, whipped a U turn and told us to get out and grab some shells. The beach here was aptly named as it was almost entirely made of small shells. Samus and Marcus loaded their pockets with shells as Jason and I strolled in opposite directions down the beach. After a few minutes Jason approached me and said that he wanted to try to get to Big Shell Beach now that he had had a chance to calm down. I was game, so we loaded up again and set out dune busting down the beach for another 15 miles. 

Driving down the beach.

Somewhere past the 31 mile marker we were becoming more and more confused. Not only were there not big shells at Big Shell Beach, but there were no shells at Big Shell Beach. Thankfully a Turtle Watch guy was driving by and we flagged him down to ask if we missing something. Mr. Turtle Watch told us that the name "Big Shell Beach" was a misnomer and all the big shells had already been removed years and years before. Well that ended that little trip and we turned around for the long slow drive back to the hot damp camper. 

Proof that we made it past the 30 mile mark. 

That night everyone was pretty well done with the beach and Jason and I started discussing leaving a little early and finding a place with electric part way to Big Bend. When everyone was settling in for another excruciatingly uncomfortable night of sleep Marcus freaked out about a "piece of sand in his eyelid." It seems he did not rinse off his hands before removing his contacts and now he was certain he might die due to the sand in his eye. After much yelling about, (by all of us) Jason got out the emergency eye rinse kit that we've carried around for six years and flushed the grain of sand from Marcus' eye. I think it was then that Jason and I separately decided that we would be leaving the next day. Right before I fell asleep I heard Marcus stage whisper from his bed, "AH! There's sand EVERYWHERE." Yes. Yes there was. 

Even this guy was starting to get worn down from all the fun. 
(He has been using that comb as a bookmark and sticks it in his hair so to to lose it while reading.)