Beaches are my favorite places to be and spend time. Whether it's running around in the ocean, collecting seashells, sitting in the sand reading my book, or just trying desperately for my pasty skin to tan, the beach is an amazing experience every time I visit. I've always dreamed of having a beach to myself or at least a small part of one that doesn't have a lot of people like you find in the summer. You find these types of beaches in movies or rich people's back yards, but they're almost impossible to obtain if you're a regular person like myself. However, I recently found my "dream come true" and let's just say, I was VASTLY disappointed.
Last weekend, I left to visit my uncle who lives in Virginia near the shore. Now this wasn't the part of the shore that is the oh-so-popular Virginia Beach with all of the nice stores on the boardwalk and the long stretches of crowded beach. This was out in the marshy area of the state, where you could find more fishermen and docks than you could tourists with beach balls and boogie boards. Let me just say, this place was beautiful in a rustic and peaceful type of way, with the herons only feet away and crabs scurrying across the loading docks, it's charming....IF you're only staying for a few hours.
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From the moment we pulled into my uncle's driveway, I was assaulted by mosquitoes, horseflies, and lord knows what else. The bug bites were immediately unbearable and made me want to hop back in the car and drive the four hours back home, no matter how beautifully charming the landscape was. However, I fought through the itchiness and made it to the house, to enjoy the rest of my vacation. The next day, out on Uncle's boat, I spotted the most beautiful small stretch of beach that I just HAD to visit. So later that afternoon, me, my grandmother, and my small niece and nephew headed out of the boat to get dropped off on that lovely stretch of paradise. Unfortunately for us, the water surrounding it was too shallow, so we were dropped off farther down the shore and had to walk the length of a football field to get there. Usually this wouldn't be a problem except for the fact that there were numerous fallen trees, shrubs, and debris in our way and I had two small children, a grandmother, and three bags to escort over there. From this moment on it suddenly felt like a bad episode of Survivor...
I had to find a way over these fallen trees with all of the luggage and other people intact. Once I accomplished that, I had to make it around the six feet tall grass and the old rusty drainage pipe until I finally made it to the dream-like beach I was after. The scenery was amazing and I instantly felt at ease....until the first bug bite. And then the next. And then another. And another. Until I was slowly losing my sanity (which is dangerously low anyway). I ran into the water with the kids to hopefully lose the pesky things, but the water was at low tide and only ankle deep, even 100 feet out, so I was still attacked for the next hour. The sun was brutally hot that day, so it only took forty-five minutes for my pasty skin to turn as red as a crab. Speaking of which, crabs were also found in the water scuttling around our feet scaring the kids half to death. It was around then that the tide came rushing in, suddenly sending the ankle deep water gushing up to waists, which meant I had to bring the kids in towards the shore.
I had had enough of my "paradise beach" after an hour and a half and went to call my mother, who was out on the boat with my uncle, to come get us. Only to find out, my phone had no service. I grabbed my grandmothers phone to call only for it to die immediately in my hand. I suddenly felt trapped on an island with two kids and my grandmother. I'd have to catch crabs and build a fire to survive, while my grandmother made a smoke signal to get us off of this hell hole. Knowing that they would eventually come back for us, I took the kids exploring for seashells on the other side of the beach, hoping that just maybe there would be some shade for us to hide in to get out of the assaulting rays of the sun. While the kids picked up broken seashells, I raised my phone in the air in awkward angles, praying for any kind of signal. By this point, we had been on this beach for four hours. We were all hungry, burnt to a crisp, and eaten alive from hellish bugs. When my mom finally answered the phone I told her to come get us. NOW. She responded with, and I quote, "Oh honey, we were on our way to get you but we found this family of dolphins and just had to get closer to take some pictures." Dolphins? Her excuse for leaving us out in the sun to bake for four hours was dolphins?! Needless to say, at this point there were a few choice words I said over the phone to my mother that you can hear on my brother's Snapchat video of the dolphins. They immediately turned around to get us.
So it was finally time to pack up and leave. The issue was, it was now high tide, and we had an extra large and heavy boogie board to carry back that Uncle had dropped off to us. Because we had no room to carry it, we strapped the small surfboard sized object to my back. Since the water was so high, I had to take trips taking each kid around the tall grass, and then help my grandmother across, all while holding the bags above my head so they didn't get wet. Then came the fallen trees, now a lot harder with a giant board strapped to my back. I did it though, which is a miracle in itself. The boat finally pulled up and I ran to it as if it were my ride to heaven. Practically throwing the kids into the boat, I then helped my grandma and tried to climb in myself. Although when I did, my shoe disappeared into the muddy water below. Not about to let this stupid beach take anything else from me, I threw the board off, kicked my other shoe into the boat, and dived after it. I dug around blind in the mud until I FINALLY found it, raising it above the water like the trophy it was. I pulled myself into the boat and said one word, "Drive."
The next time I complain about how crowded a beach is, I will think back to this experience, cringe, and then pray in thanks for the people around me.
