Our Vacation, Part Four

The key to the cottage came with a check list of all the things we were supposed to do before we left at the end of the week. Basically it amounted to: "If it looks like you were ever here, you will loose your deposit". "Great." I thought.  "I'm going to get hung on this somehow..." But I had all the time in the world before I had to worry about it. A whole week, in fact.

It took a a few tries before the door would unlock. At first, I wasn't sure we had the right place. I had visions of us walking in on some unsuspecting family who would soon find out that we had no intention of leaving until the week was over. But this was the right place and once the door was open, we blew in and unpacked in a heartbeat. It felt a little strange to me at first. The cottage we used to stay at was less than a mile away. It was the real cottage to me- it had an almost "full" kitchen that was just a step or two above camping, two bedrooms-one of which housed three of the kids, the other one where Sam would sleep on an air mattress on the floor, a small living room (i.e.: the master bedroom) and, for better or worse, a small, centrally located bathroom. Basically- a real cottage.

This place was arguably bigger than our house. Granted that's not saying much, but still... It had a dining room that was large enough for a person to walk around the entire table. The kitchen had an actual dishwasher. There were three bedrooms which meant that for the first time in nearly twenty years, I wouldn't be spending the vacation sleeping on the living room floor. And best of all, in addition to the regular bathroom (which also was bigger than the one at home), there was a half bath off the master bedroom. This vacation was getting better by the minute.

We set up all of our stuff until it was a close approximation of home- except without the overwhelming clutter, then we ran a few quick errands. The rest of the time was spent having dinner and relaxing and making a to-do list for the week ahead, and making plans for later in the evening. Sam made himself comfortable and settled into a recliner to watch TV. Several games that were brought along were taken out and stacked in the living room- just in case we had the energy to play any of them when we got back

After dinner, we headed back out again in what had become our routine over the past years of vacations. The first stop was at the nearest Christmas Tree Shop. It was a short ride to get there and once we arrived, we all piled into the store, prepared to find all the stuff that had been waiting two years for us to buy. Strangely, this wasn't happening. I'm not sure what the problem was, but none of us were finding all that much of interest. In years past, it was difficult to fit all the shopping bags filled with the junk we bought into the van, but not this time. Try as we might, we were just not fulfilling our self-imposed quota of purchases. Why was this? Has the quality of their crap somehow diminished? This seemed unlikely, since this has never been a consideration before... and we have a house full of it for proof. Perhaps this was the problem. We already have everything they're selling packed into our tiny home. The appeal of buying double or triple (or more- in the case of candles) of what we already own, was not doing it for us. How strange. Perhaps when we stop at the other stores later in the week, we'll feel differently. For now, we left the store and headed to the beach.

The last outing of our first day has always been to go to the Windy Beach. This is not the real name of the beach, it's just the clever name we gave it years ago since it's always windy, and, it's a beach. We've never gone swimming there. We walk the beach and find shells amongst the seaweed and dead horseshoe crabs scattered along the shoreline. Helaina mostly goes after the toenail shells and Jake scours mostly for the scallop shells. Strangely, we seldom find rocks here, but there are other places to find those. Occasionally we fly kites, as Rachael did this year- with some effort.

I've always enjoyed taking pictures of the kids at this beach. In the evening, the low angle of the sun casts long, sharp shadows that contrast with the light- which is especially golden. The sunsets at the Mayflower beach may be more dramatic, but here, there is something both sad and comforting in the melancholy fading afternoon light that hints at the approach of autumn. It seems well suited to my nature.

As night filtered in, we headed back to the van where we would brush off our feet before the drive back to the cottage. The games we left out earlier would have to wait for another night.

Our Vacation, Part Three

I had given Sam a metal detector for a birthday present quite a while ago. I think he may have expressed a passing desire for one at some point, probably because he saw someone using one in a cartoon, but it’s been a while and I can’t remember the exact circumstances. Wherever the spark came from, it was at least in part, in very large part, a ploy to get him out of the house. This worked for a while, but gradually Sam lost interest, and the metal detector sat in the corner of the dining room gathering dust ever since. I figured it was forgotten, but apparently not. When Sam heard we were going on vacation, it was his idea to bring the metal detector along.

So there was Sam, behind our tent on the beach, pacing slowly in a meandering circle, patiently sweeping the metal detector side to side as he walked, hoping to find some buried treasure. Every so often the detector would beep and Sam would take his plastic shovel and scoop up some sand. In the time I had gone for my walk, Sam had developed a pretty good system. After scooping the sand, he would first wave the metal detector over the hole and if he wasn’t getting a beep, he would hold it over his shovel full of sand. If he got a beep, he would slowly sift the sand until something showed up, otherwise it was back to the hole where he would start all over again.

Sam kept it up for quite a while but I could see that he was starting to get discouraged. He had been at this for over an hour and his booty consisted of a couple of bottle caps, the occasional piece of crumpled up foil, and for some odd reason, a couple of cigarette butts (which, thankfully, he had the good sense not to pick up). We had a little while to go before we could pick up the key to the cottage, but his pacing was getting slower and slower and he was developing “that look”. This is the look he gets that starts out as a soft, contented smile, but gradually devolves into a tighter and tighter grimace as his fatigue and frustration sets in. I did my best to play it up. "Keep looking Sam, you're doing great!", I'd say, but clearly, he was having none of it. Oh, he was going to continue on. He had it in his sights and since he's my son, he would obsess about it until he hit some kind of payoff, or it was time to leave- whichever came last...just like me.

Like me at his age, Sam is not a beach guy. Unlike me, he doesn’t really complain about it- unless it gets dire. He doesn’t swim and he’s never been big into digging holes or making sand castles. He'll go along with it, but it's only to make you happy. Like his brother and sisters, he likes hermit crabs. But unlike his brother and sisters, he leaves them alone. He doesn't collect them in a bucket or make new homes for them. I think he figures they’re happier where they are over any new home he could dig for them, and he’s more content to let them be.

Sam is also a person who likes his hands clean, and if that’s the kind of person you happen to be, well, there are better places to be than at the beach. But he puts up with it.

I could relate to some of this. I just wished that I could find some way to make the day at the beach a little more fun for him.

Sam kept looking in the sand and I left him to his hunt and I joined Jake for a walk to explore the shallow water over by the rocks. When we came back, Sam was still looking. I excused myself for a minute and walked up the tall stairs, past the snack bar to where the van was parked. When I came back down, Sam had just about had it.

As I made my way back down to the tent, I told Sam I thought I spotted something where I had been standing a moment ago, and suggested that maybe he should check around there. He did and sure enough, there was a quarter that someone must have dropped. Pretty soon, he came upon a few pennies and a nickel. This brightened things up considerably. Little by little he found more coins, along with the stray bottle cap and piece of trash. He was getting a pretty good collection going, but by then it was getting time to pack up and leave. We gathered our stuff, took down the tent and made our way across the hot sand and up the even hotter steps, back to the van, so we could get some pizza and then pick up the key to the cottage.

Later, as we drove to get the key, I wondered what Sam would remember about this day- or if he'd remember any of it at all. At some level, I knew it really didn't matter.

I thought back to a time, many years ago, when I was little. My Dad was digging a patio in the back yard and somehow, one of us kids spotted a coin in the dirt. Before long, more coins were found as me and my brother and sisters, and even some neighborhood kids, were digging in the dirt for treasure. I don’t remember much more than that. But... I feel it. I feel the fun and I feel the excitement and for some odd reason, I feel warmth- not for whatever it was that I found, because, to be honest, I really can’t remember what it was that I found. But I'm left with that feeling. And I know, after all of these years, that whatever I had found there, it was priceless.

Sam had fun today and that's what mattered.

Now it was time to get the key.

Our Vacation, Part Two

The drive to the Cape was an uneventful and quiet three hours. This was in sharp contrast to when the kids were little. When they were small, the van would be filled with the excited chatter of squeaky voices as they played with their toys and made plans for the adventure ahead. That was then. Now they’re older. Now they’re sleepy. It’s not that they’re worn out from the excitement of leaving. It's that they’re worn out by packing in all of the excitement the night before we leave.

Things stayed pretty quiet for the next two and a half hours, until we approached the bridge. That's when interest started to pick up with all the familiar sights and sounds- the bridge up ahead, the brush pines growing in the sand, me getting angry at the other drivers...

Getting through the traffic and over the bridge is always the first major milestone. Making it onto, and and then off of the rotary alive is the next. But after that, it’s a quick pit stop and a short half hour of congested driving until we reached our first destination.

Our first stop was the Town Office to get a beach sticker. The cost of a beach sticker is one of the few things I know of that goes up faster than the price of gasoline. It always feels like a crapshoot as to whether I should invest in one or not. If the weather for the week is beautiful, we would be going to the beach a lot and we would get our money’s worth. If the weather is lousy, I would then be forced to make my kids go to the beach in the rain in order to get my money’s worth. The drawback here is that I might feel guilty as I sat van waiting for them to make the cost of the sticker worthwhile. After deciding it was worth the risk, Jake and I walked through the drizzle to get the sticker... just like every other year.

Since we couldn't check into the cottage until later in the day, we went from the Town office to the beach. It took me years to wise up to this idea of going directly to the beach after getting a sticker. I’m not sure why. In years past, instead of going to the beach, we would kill the time before check-in by driving around, or going to the playground, or in desperation, hanging out at the grocery store parking lot. Finally one year I got the brainstorm: “Hey, we just got a beach sticker. Why don’t we go to the beach??!” Not only was it a brilliant idea, but this had the added advantage justifying my leaving at the crack of dawn “to beat the traffic”. We could make the three hour drive, get a beach sticker, drive to the beach, and still be there before most vacationers were dragging themselves out of their cottages.

Sure enough, when we arrived at the beach, it was nearly empty. Part of this was because of the early time of day, but part was also due to the just departed early morning rain. We parked, lugged out all of our belongings. The kids grabbed the tent and the cooler and the towels while I took off my sneakers, to leave behind, cleverly stashing my bag of change inside them. We headed down to the beach to stake out our claim. By now, the sun was struggling to break through, but the sand was still pretty damp. We found “our spot”, set up our beach tent, and laid out the towels. While some of us went to explore the shore for rocks and shells, Sam hauled out his metal detector and began sweeping the sands behind our tent.

I walked the shore with the others, looking for rocks to put in the rock tumbler back home. This was despite the fact that I already had about four or five bags of rocks from the vacation of two years earlier, still sitting in the basement waiting for their turn to be tumbled. At the time, I figured the trip was likely to be our last, so I collected way more rocks than was “necessary”. I figure I should be able to get them all tumbled in another three or four years. This, of course, did not stop me from collecting more.

Looking for rocks and shells is a lot like going to the flea market. You stroll along, examining every minute detail, looking for the one gem that's just right and makes it all worthwhile. It takes a lot of patience. But patience wears thin and the longer you walk along, the less picky you get. Not wanting to leave empty handed, you begin settling for items of, shall we say, “lesser quality". And little by little, you blindly collect more and more stuff.

Another other way it’s like a flea market, is that once this happens, you better be prepared to carry back whatever you find. This is often a problem, especially if it’s the first outing. Too many times in the past I’ve forgotten to bring along a bag or bucket with me, so I end up popping the occasional pebble into the pocket of my swim suit. By the end of my walk, I’m clutching my suit as I head back to our tent with my pockets bulging. This is not a good thing. The site of me in a swimsuit is bad enough. The site of me clutching a swimsuit that looks like it's bloated with some grotesque form of cellulite is enough repulse anyone. But I was prepared for rock collecting this time, so we headed off with my Zip-lock bag, ready for the hunt.

This particular beach has some wonderful little rocks further down the shore. Unfortunately "further down the shore" puts them in the “Private Beach’ section. You can tell this is the private beach section because of the signs that say “Keep Out. Private Beach”. But this was early in the morning and there were only a couple of people on the other side, so we paid it no attention. After all, what could happen? Do they have their own version of lifeguards over there, saving their citizens from the flotsam that drifts over the border? I doubt it. After all, where would they sit? There we none of those tall chairs. And how would anyone be able to tell we weren’t “one of them”? We’re all just people, right? As their side of the border began to get more crowded (with all of ten people), it became clear how wrong I was.

Right off the bat, these people spotted us as the interlopers we were. You could just feel it. At first I tried not making eye contact with them and instead made innocuous small talk with my kids as we walked along looking out at the ocean. I'd say things like, “Wow, look at that water!” Or “Sure looks like it's going to be a nice day!” But clearly I wasn’t fooling anyone. I was like the country bumpkin in the big city who keeps looking up at all the tall buildings. I was just making things worse.

View from "The Forbidden Zone". Note the Common People in the distance.

When I finally summoned the courage to glance over at the Beautiful People, it only confirmed my worst fears. I could see I was being examined with a squinty glare that screamed, “You. Don’t. Belong. You. Must. Die.” I recognized this look. It was the look of the Borg. I started to slink away. I felt like a wolf in an ill-fitting chicken suit who was caught leaving the hen house.

Who was I kidding? I knew I didn't belong here. I look like someone who should be collecting their trash, or worse, like someone who would go through their trash- which in a way, I guess I was. I knew it was time to head back. “Well”, I thought to myself as I slinked back over the boundary, “If that’s what you people are like, you can keep you high livin’ and your shiny boats and your fancy beaches. And now if you don’t mind, I’ll be leaving... with a bag full of your rocks!" Take that suckas!

As I headed back to the tent I saw that Sam was still sweeping his metal detector over the sands, looking for treasure.

Our Vacation, Part One

I'm not sure whether it makes more sense to write one long, boring post about my vacation, or several shorter, but just as boring posts.  So, I'll start with this...

My first real vacation in two years started like most of my vacations- in a torrential downpour. It had become a running joke in the family to wait until I scheduled my vacation, then you would know which week not to take for yours. This year was no exception. The summer long drought we had been experiencing, was broken by the fact that it was time for me and Jake to vacuum and load up the van in preparation of our trip. We barely made it through the vacuuming part when we had to wait for the rain and lightning to let up- at least long enough so that it wasn’t quite life threatening. Then we could start the real work.

Waiting is often a problem for me, but this was especially tough- largely because I had left work early to pack up, and as far as I was concerned, this meant vacation had officially started. Every minute I wasted beyond this point was another minute I was behind on my tight schedule of having nothing but fun, fun, fun.

But I had little choice, so I waited. Once the rain dissipated to a drizzle, Jake and I made a break for it and we strapped the roof carrier on the van. Next, we packed the inside of the van with all of the essentials, and by “essentials”, I mean mostly the kids’ stuff. Their things traditionally get packed inside the van while everything else gets stuffed into the roof carrier. This is a precaution in case tragedy strikes and the roof carrier blows off somewhere along the way. It's not that this has ever happened... except for that one time with the Christmas tree (that’s a story for another day), but better that I should lose my stuff along the highway than they lose any of theirs.

In between the breaks of rain, everything else got packed- and in record time besides. Remarkably, the roof carrier looked somewhat under-stuffed. This was in contrast to most years where the carrier is straining against the bungee cords, ready to burst open. The inside of the van was another matter. Gone was the nice cleaning job that Jake had done. Instead, it looked as though something exploded and threw everybody's stuff right up tight against the windows. In a way, this was actually good news because it meant that everything was packed and we were ready to leave the following morning. With mission accomplished, there was nothing to do but sit back, relax, and hope that my neighbor, Lawnmower Man, didn’t come by during the night and rip us off.

Saturday morning came early, thanks to me setting my alarm clock. It was still raining (surprise!) when Helaina showed up- all bright eyed and ready to go- just in time for us to leave. We gathered the last remaining necessities, like the cooler, medication, Sam’s stuffed animals and blankets, etc. I grabbed a bag of change I had saved over the past year, along with my coffee and notebook. Then I hopped in the van, and after a brief stop at Dunkin Donuts, we headed off for fun and hopefully, some sun.

Preface

For the last twenty-odd years my family went on a weekly vacation to Cape Cod. Last year was the first year we didn't and we didn’t for a couple of reasons. The first reason was that the woman who owned the cottage we rented every year had passed away. One of her sons inherited the place, and for some inexplicable reason, he had not made me and my family his top priority. After one short year of ownership he decided to sell our the cottage- without asking. It wasn’t exactly a shock, but still, I thought it was a little inconsiderate. Still, we were able to squeeze in one truncated vacation before the place was sold, but barely- we were able to rent that final year with the understanding that realtors may be stopping by to view the place while we were there.

An even bigger factor than the cottage being gone is that my kids are growing up. This comes as no great surprise to anyone except me. The thing is, back when my kids were small, my schedule was their schedule. I could put a deposit down on the cottage in March, for a week’s stay in August, and not give it a second thought. It was no big deal to herd a bunch of little kids and know what they would be doing months in advance.

But now it's a different ball game. As they've gotten older, they seem to have developed lives of their own. I'm not sure how this has happened. I certainly don't remember giving them permission, but it's happened anyway. Their thoughtlessness in having their own lives has therefore made scheduling family events a lot more difficult. Planning in advance for a common week together goes out the window. Even coordinating schedules a couple of weeks in advance can be impossible.

Except this year.

It was pretty much last minute, but somehow we managed to go away together once again- hopefully not for the last time. It was a lot of fun and I'll write more on this later, but right now Iron Man calls...

Observation of the Day

Artistic interpretation of me at work the week before
and the week after vacation.

When it comes to work, the week before vacation is Hell.
The week after vacation is Hell also.

This concludes today's commentary.