I’m not ready, not yet anyway.  I am not ready to say goodbye to summer.  It has got to be one of the cruelest parts about living in North Carolina.  It’s post Labor Day, but the weather still screams summer and the water temperature at Wrightsville Beach is over 80.  What is a guy to do?  Well, you leave it to the school system of course.  School started on the 26th.  By my math (something I was never good at) the girls have been in school for 8 days.  It makes absolute perfect sense that it is already time for a teacher workday.  I’ll gladly take the day off.  Hey girls, wanna go to the beach?

I loaded the car last night and put the surf board on top so we could leave this morning at 5:30.  We did a good job and were on the way by 5:45.  A short and uneventful drive later we were at Public Access number 7.  I looked at the ocean and decided that the one foot shorebreaks were not worth taking the board off of the car.  Lucy and Ethel grabbed the chair, bodyboards, cooler, and sand toys and we headed to the sand.  The three of us enjoyed a nice breakfast on the beach and after applying some sunscreen, the girls were off to the water.  So, we played.  Then we had a snack.  Hey Dad, can we get the boogie boards?  Go for it.  It is worth mentioning that Ethel is quite proficient with the boogie board and she often rides the wave until it is no more.  On this day, at this beach that was a problem.  She caught the first wave she sought, rode it to the shore, and came up gimpy.  She managed to ride it all the way to the shells.  The ones that sliced her knees.  Break time!

The girls played in the sand a bit and went back to the water.  Before we headed back to the water, we finished off our last bit of Hawaii by enjoying our Maui Chips on the coast of Carolina.  After the chips, we noticed that the gulls were getting fairly aggressive and freaked us all out, a bit.  I hung out for a moment on the sand and watched the girls cut backflip after backflip in the ocean.  Too soon, it was time to pack up.  We drove down the street at a nice slow pace with the windows down and Radio Margaritaville blasting.  I had promised the girls a new outfit, so surf shops, here we come.

Our first, and very brief, stop was Sweetwater Surf Shop.  I have never been able to find anything in this shop and the staff is less than friendly.  It almost seems that if you are not a local, then you are not necessarily welcome in the shop.  So we left.  Next we went to Surf City Surf Shop.  The folks here are friendly and welcoming.  The girls picked out new dresses and we chatted with the two guys on staff and a production assistant for a show being made in the area for a bit.  It was sort of an aloha moment where everyone was just enjoying the moment.  After the obligatory stop at Redix, we headed back across the causeway.  We made a quick stop at Port City Java (now with gluten-free bread!) and then pointed the car towards Raleigh.

We had a blast in the car singing along with pointless ’90s songs.  It is rewarding as a father to look in the rearview mirror and see your youngest singing along with “Enter Sandman” and your oldest rocking out to Lenny Kravitz.  Singing and car-dancing (don’t act you haven’t done it) made the short trip even shorter.  This was a great way to spend a teacher workday.  But much like my last post lamenting the speed of summer, this day went by too fast.  Sometimes, I am not so sure that I am doing a decent job raising my girls.  On days like this, though, I feel like I am having an impact on their lives and creating memories for them.  So yes, fall is coming.  There is college football tomorrow, the professionals play on Sunday, and the trees are starting to change.  Fall brings with it lots of great things, and I’ll go into it with everyone else.  But I’m going kicking and screaming.