Another Memorial Day, another long weekend on the Outer Banks in NC. Each year, the single adult Mormon crowd makes a mass exodus to the beach. Besides the normal NOVA group, there are singles that travel from all over; Philly, Florida, Boston, CA, etc. Dozens of beach houses are rented, an abundance of food is purchased (always WAY too much!), hundreds of Mormon bodies line the beach each day, competition for the best house party is in full force, and soft drinks are consumed by the case. These are the items that make up the recipe for fun times!
- This year, I decided to make the trek to what I call the "Meat Beach". This is the big public beach where they hold some volleyball tournaments and it is typically the day that the most skin is bared, newly-formed couples flirt, girls let out their best high-pitched squealy laughs, guys use their best pick-up lines, and if you're lucky, you can see some tickle tag played in the surf. Last year I avoided this beach altogether. NOT interested. However, this year, I was anxious to do some people watching. I arrived at Meat Beach with a group of friends from our house, and my eyes were eager to find some scandal..... or at least something amusing to look at and talk about. People-watching is probably one of my most favorite past-times. :)
- Much to our dismay, it was a pretty chilly day at the beach, so it did not merit a lot of skin-showing. There were a couple of guys who came over to talk to me and my friend Tasha, but we quickly dismissed them. We were not interested in meeting new boys -- they would just interrupt our scandal-radar and hamper our people-watching abilities. A nuisance, if you will. I look back and think, is this weird of me that I didn't care about meeting new boys? Some people would argue that that should be my quest at this point in my life -- Meet as many boys as possible so that in the off-chance that this dude is A: Older than me (or at least within a year of my age) B: Funny and think I'm funny, too C: Not completely and absolutely absorbed in his career and fight to the top of the corporate ladder D: willing to do nice things without asking me to clean his entire apartment in a short skirt in return E: a true gentleman F: Need I go on? .. then we can get married and live happily ever after. Brilliant. While I'm certainly not opposed to getting married, nor do I shy away from meeting new people ALL the time, I do find it exhausting to constantly think about marriage and wonder if I ever will get hitched, who it will be, will the next relationship end in heartbreak again, before I get to the "right" one, etc. No thanks. I'd rather just be chill and let what happens happen. Plus, it's a little liberating not to care so much.
- What path has this blog taken? I'm going back to the weekend at the beach....
- The result of the day at Meat Beach was that we didn't get a lot of "show" for our time spent there, but we were able to enjoy fun conversation with close friends. Also, since it was a bit chilly, I left my board shorts on the entire 4 hours we were there.... I also had a little headband on, leftover from my morning jog -- nope, didn't take it off before heading to the beach. I never really felt warm that day at the beach, so I did not notice all the sun I was getting. Turns out that my nose, shoulders, chest, and right ear got blistered. Plus, I had a nice stark-white sunburn line on my forehead where my headband drifted below my hairline, and also a very distinct shorts line mid-thigh. Awesome. At least I lived up to my reputation from last year. Not sure which is worse -- accepting newly-bought cream that I thought was for sunburns and slathering it ALL over my face, only to find out that the dude had actually bought the cream for himself for his chafing problem, or having everybody point out the fact that I had a perma-headband line on my forehead and exclaiming, "Didn't you learn from last year to apply sunscreen?" all weekend. :) At least I think it's funny.
- Some more highlights from this year at Duck include:
- Saturday night Karaoke! We had some brave people in our group who actually sang, and the group of Marines that were there just couldn't resist joining in Neil Diamond's "America", or picking up on the Katies.
- The time spent "strategizing" how to handle these Marines the next day.. "Don't go to a karaoke bar again with them" "Invite them over for some time in the hot tub!" "They HAVE to choose half-naked girls in bathing suits over drinks at a bar" "Give them a choice: Drinks or Naked" We all had some good laughs talking about things that we would never actually say.
- All of us claiming we had an eating disorder the entire weekend because there was never a long moment without food in our mouths. (It was funny, I promise)
- Tasha and me sitting on the couch looking out the bay windows to the ocean, each with our laptops.
- The classic beach photos and other crazy camera shots
- The never-ending playing of our Duck Beach soundtrack, complete with songs from Miley Cyrus, Rhianna, Linkin Park and Dolly Parton, to name a few.
- Tennis with teams WTD and Brew-Ha!
- Playing "Whoonu?" with the girls and laughing hysterically. "Don't you like Robots?"
- Poker
- Teaching newbies the joy of playing Nertz
- Feeling so out of it from my sunburn that I think I was a little delirious and not fully aware of what was going on on Sunday. Suddenly, in the middle of dinner, I just couldn't take the heat anymore. My skin was roasting. I jumped up from the table, ran outside the sliding glass door, down the deck stairs, quickly shook out of my zip-up and shorts and jumped in to the ice-cold pool. AH. BETTER.
- The creativity I had to go through in order to cover up my severely sunburned areas on my body while trying to get some color on the rest of my white body.
- Playing in the ocean and trying to catch a "wave".
- Monday night when everybody left to go home except for me, Hayden and Katie L. We got crazy and jumped/danced all over the furniture, inspired by music such as Miley Cyrus, The Beach Boys & AC/DC. Michael and Travis decided to join us. A real dance party.
- Party in the baby hot tub Monday night; we had set it that afternoon to warm up to a decent temperature so we could get in at night -- it was SCALDING hot against my sunburned skin, so we had to pump it full of cold water from the hose. Then we almost overflowed it with our 5 bodies. Totally worth it.
- Sleeping each night with the sliding glass door open and falling asleep to the sound of the ocean. This was especially great the last night, as I got the entire king size bed to myself, and there were no crazy-loud early-risers to disturb my slumber.
Overall, it was a glorious trip! I love the beach. Despite the crazy wind/sand storm the last day, and the chilly air the first day, it was still a most enjoyable weekend. Much fun was had, lots of laughs, and lots of sun. Here's to the same next year!- **Again, a problem with the paragraphs not separating... I had to bullet my paragraphs. :P**
