And we drove on and on, forever and ever...

[elfs]

So here's our Saturday. We get up late, around nine, and immediately head out to make the 10:30 ferry for Bainbridge. The kids are actually quite good about this because the promised pay-off for getting dressed and out the door is a treat breakfast: doughnuts and milk. We stop at the doughnut shop and buy enough for everybody, then hurtle down SR509 to the ferry dock.

Omaha is convinced there's no way we're going to get on the ferry. This place is full. And I'm almost in agreement with her. There are a lot of cars there. Somehow, the entire lot-full gets on, making me wonder if the ferry Wenatchee isn't a Tardis.

Yamaarashi-chan goes to the window and immediately launches into a monologue about all of her invisible friends, what they're doing. She completely ignores anyone around her. This bothers me. I know it's normal for kids her age, but I can't help wonder if it's a partially learned behavior in her case.

We get off the Ferry in Bainbridge and begin driving. And we drive. And we drive. It's a ninety-minute drive to the park. The kids are, all things considered, wonderful about the trip. A little whiny, but hardly in the "are we there yet" camp.

This is mostly a fundraiser for the local science center. We were supposed to spend the day with riverheart and charlesks, but Riverheart is feeling under the weather and they stay home. So it's just us. The kids have a blast, playing in the very mild surf, running around with other children, getting wet, making sand castles. It's really what a day at the beach is supposed to be like. We wander up to the science center, where the kids stick there hands into the indoor "tide pools" and touch starfish and tease crabs. Omaha hangs out with the marine people down in the research boat, trying to get a feel for... what? Job opportunities? I so know she wants to get back on the water. I wish she could.

While we're there, an otter climbs up on the dock. It was a handsome beast, about a meter long, brown furred with a grizzled face. Obviously quite at home among humans, although ready to jump overboard the second one gets too close.

Then Kouryou-chan disappears. Omaha and I have a moment of sheer panic as we realize we can't find her. I go running to the whale exhibit while Omaha checks the beach-- both were good spots. Kouryou-chan turns up in the parking lot, running among the cars. We're both furious. I find her first, and after a "What the Hell are you thinking? I'm really mad, and you wait until you see just how mad your Mom is!" speech, she's appropriately contrite and promises she will stay in sight for the rest of the day.

Later, we learn just how far that "in sight" promise can hold.

We have lunch at the festival grill-- hamburgers and hotdogs, real ones, not Costco beef patties at all. Yummy! And with all the onions I could want! Kouryou-chan didn't eat hers. Yamaarash-chan made hers disappear.

We wander down to the "festival" proper. Now, this is a Western Washington city-sponsored festival. That means that there's going to be bad local music and stands of politically correct "save the whales," "save the salmon," "save the eelgrass" (a kind of shallow-water plant; I'm not making that last one up) petitioners and "awareness raisers." The music is actually really bad, with folk music about phyla and horrible, off-key impressions of "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Roadhouse Blues."

And, given the nature of the festival, it was mostly parents and their young kids. Not a lot of eye candy... until these two girls walk by. They're both seventeen, possibly eighteen. One is wearing a tight tie-dye sun dress, the other in a one-piece blue Speedo bathing suit. The tie-dyed one was cute, kinda flat-chested but with a very nice butt, but the one in the Speedo-- She was there to torture post-30's men like myself. She knew that she shamed every woman who'd ever appeared on Baywatch. Gotta admire chutzpah like that.

After Omaha was done in the local marine museum, we wandered back to the beach, where Kouryou-chan and Yamaarashi-chan played in the sand some more, making friends with a few of the other kids. Then we headed home.

The kids ran out ahead of us. And they kept running. Past the break in the dunes where we were supposed to go back to the car. They're still "in sight," a quarter mile down the beach. And then Kouryou-chan falls down, face-first, into the surf. She gets up, but only now does she realize that she's so far from her parents and at least her dignity is sufficiently wounded to deserve tears. She starts heading back towards us. Yamaarashi-chan, even further out, realizing that she's no longer being followed, turns around and heads back herself. After a few minutes, we get them back into the car, changed into drier clothes, and we're off. I wasn't that worried-- there were people all up and down the beach, but I was mad that they chose to run so far. I mean, they must have run almost a mile or more by themselves.

The drive home was eventful. We almost ended up on the wrong ferry because we took a left instead of a right after going over the Hood Canal bridge (another of Washington's odd floating bridges) and ended up in Kingston. After dickering and buying a map-- and making sure both girls got to use the bathroom at the gas station-- we head back out and just miss the 7:10 ferry. We have an hour to wait. So the girls go to the bathroom yet again (and Omaha has to take both of them because the men's room has been completely vandalized) and then we run up to town on foot to get really bad pizza. I run back early to make sure I don't miss boarding call.

We get onto the ferry and sit down on the upper deck. The boat pulls out of dock as we're eating, and then Kouryou-chan spills her cup of water all over the table. I get some towels from the dining room to mop it up, then succeed in spilling the cup (which we were using as the mop bucket) again, this time on the floor. We give up and call the boat's maintenence crew.

Aside from Kouryou-chan's running off, both girls were really wonderful all day long. They tolerated a very long car-ride very well and we're pretty good even at the festival. A day at beach seems to have been a good choice.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

As far as the chickie in the speedo.... yeah, she knows it, and probably has an ego to make Heather Alexander's look like an ameba. Much rather date someone who's maybe slightly less eye candy but who's nice and considerate and thinks... like, say, your lovely wife, with emphasis on the "slightly less".... ;)

[jorjedatoy.livejournal.com]

I love that song!

[kyriani.livejournal.com]

Heh and so true... Of course theres always the differing definitions of pretty... But in that case I would add "socially-defined" to "pretty". ^_^

Sounds like a fun weekend, its been a long time since I went to the beach... Reminds me that I really need to go camping again. ^_^

Re: I love that song!

[jorjedatoy.livejournal.com]