Beach Bound

Life takes us down many paths, but my favorite one leads to the beach.

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This past week my parents and I drove the desolate back roads and highway from Arizona to San Diego for some vaccinated, old time R&R. We endured the 6-hour drive through the desert dirt sprinkled with a little farmland here and there. We also endured my dad telling us his stories of picking cantaloupe the summer before going off to college. He mentioned several times possibly for sympathy “in the scorching Yuma sun.”  

As we approached Mission Beach, the smell of the ocean washed away all the worries and negative thoughts. We were able to spend most of the day bundled up in sweatshirts being grateful to be out of the rising Phoenix heat. We sat with our toes in the sand cheering on strangers from afar who were learning to surf. We also walked the beach in search of seashells. We marveled at one lady who appeared to have run the whole beach in the soft sand. We watched an elderly gentleman grinning from ear to ear while he roller bladed down the boardwalk between shops and restaurants. We saw a huge bulldog dyed green for St. Patrick’s Day by his green haired master who pulled him up and down the beach in a Radio Flyer wagon with green painted sideboards. We smiled after listening to a little boy who told us about his first fantastic adventures in the water despite his teeth tapping and shivering from the cold interruptions.  

Sitting on your patio watching as the beach life passes by is priceless entertainment. The greatest laugh was seeing a man in a Shamrock onesie jumping on a blow-up trampoline and on the other side of the walkway…. a goat with a basketball. The goat lives in a yellow tangerine painted hippie bus with the word “GOAT” spray-painted across the side. Tied to the front bumper was a little red wagon full of hay. No one seemed to bat an eye as they walked past the goat except me. I may have let slip, “Is that a goat on the beach?” Yup. Everyone seemed to accept the presence of the traveling goat as if it would be stranger not to see him there. I have been to my share of beaches all over the world. I have seen beaches lined with sea lions, covered in black sand, pinkish sand, rocks, flamingos, cats, dogs, etc, but never a goat. I can now check that off my list.  

We were also fortunate enough to catch up with a high school friend of mine over clam chowder at World Famous, a little know restaurant with a big ego. My parents had not seen him in 21 years and me about 4. Blending new and old memories, what a great way to end our get-away.  

Dad was able to keep with the family tradition by getting lost on a one-way road on the way home. He had an explanation for the unexplainable, but that’s another story. 

Moral: There can be a beach bum in all of us, even goats.  

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