Our Vacation, Part Six

Though it was only Monday, there was a sense of trying to make up for lost time when it came to going to the beach. Even though it looked rainy and the weather forecast was predicting an iffy day, we packed up and headed to our usual spot. On the nearly empty beach, we set up our tent and spread out the blankets in the sand, which was still damp from the rain the day before. It wasn’t too long after we arrived that the clouds burned off and the the weather turned hot and dry. And it wasn't long after that until the beach became more and more crowded and our space was slowly being encroached upon by strangers, who for some odd reason selfishly felt that this was their beach too. I hate those kinds of people.

Most of the day was spent walking the beach and exploring the rocks and making plans for later in the day. Maybe we would do some more shopping in the afternoon. Maybe we would squeeze in some mini golf as well. There was still a lot to do, but for now, it was fun to walk along and explore the beach and our options.
When it was time to go, we did what we've done every other year, which was to stop at the snack bar to get ice creams before heading back to the car. The snack bar has been completely rebuilt since we were last here and apparently they plan on refinancing the construction solely on what they're charging for the ice creams. I miss that old snack bar.

More shopping came later that day: a stop at KMart (because nothing says “Welcome to Cape Cod” like shopping at Kmart) and then, for something completely different, we made a quick stop at another Christmas Tree Shop! Like shopping at the other Christmas Tree Shops, we came away nearly empty handed. This time though, I chalked it up to the madhouse it must have been earlier in the day, when the weather was presumed to be bad. I can’t remember whether shopping on a rainy day at the Cape is the fourth circle of Hell or the fifth circle of Hell, but if you’ve ever lived through it, you know it’s whichever one is worse. As a result of the rainy day mayhem, the shelves were in even more disarray than usual, and depending on which employee you looked at, they either had that wide-eyed “don’t hurt me” look, or they had a look that suggested they were going to hurt you. They looked exhausted and we were getting there too.

Maybe mini-golf wasn’t the best idea right now. One thing I’ve learned from past vacations is that when people are tired, doing anything competitive is not too smart. In the past, if people were tired, we would tend to get about halfway through a game before it devolved into arguments about scores and how many strokes the other person had. Pretty soon you would just be trying to get through the course before people started hitting each other with their putters.

We would do mini-golf another day.

We headed back to the cottage to have dinner and, with the exception of heading back to Hyannis to retrieve Helaina’s forgotten change purse, we laid low for the night. Sam worked on a jigsaw puzzle and watched TV. I re-learned how to play Egyptian Rat Screw and rapidly lost to Rachael and Jake while Helaina watched. It wasn't long before we all headed off to bed.