Beach Adventures

You know you've been in the land of winter too long when you are Hawaiian and have gotten your first extremely bad sunburn.

My face has gotten red before. It turned brown the next day. I've been red before, but it has never actually been painful.

This, my friends, is painful. My legs are red, my arms are red, my back is red, my face is red, my chest is red, everything is red! It hurts very badly. Sleeping last night with a sheet was a fun adventure. I woke up all stiff and sore, probably from staying frozen all night to avoid pain.

Yesterday, I went to Huntington Beach. My brothers did not want to go with me. And I didn't want to pay $15 to park. So I parked on Magnolia and walked about a mile carrying a really heavy ice chest and some other provisions. It was rough, but worth it. I finally lay down on my straw mat on the sand at 11:30 AM.

Unfortunately, at the shore, the weather was really overcast, which means more harmful UV rays. But I'm brown. I don't burn. Right? The temperature was great, and there was a breeze that wasn't too chilly.

After being by myself for a couple of hours, some groups started showing up. There was a huge amount of empty space between me and the next life guard tower. But within three minutes of each other, two separate groups sat within 15 feet of me. Seriously? All the empty space you can imagine, and these people want to be next to me. Why? What is it with people and their sheeplike tendencies?

One group had two ladies and two guys. The guys went out into the water, and I got to hear a very colorful conversation about one of the ladies' sexual exploits. She was using F words and talking about her orgasms and about a certain guy's abilities. I'm toning it down here, for your sake. I had about enough of that so I grabbed my headphones and listened to Taking Back Sunday.

The other group had several people in it--maybe 7 or 8 young men and women. They were fine... until they started playing frisbee. One of them mis-fired. And the frisbee landed in such a way as to totally spray me with sand. Awesome. Thanks, guys.

The fun doesn't end there. In that small amount of empty space between me and the larger group, a family of 7 decided to stake it out three feet away from me. Are you kidding me? Really though. Really?

I thought that all of this would be perfect for the blog.  But I needed proof. This illustrates how much empty space there was, and therefore how unnecessary it was to be so close to me.


Yeah. I was not exaggerating. Three feet away from me.

So there I was for four hours in the overcast sunlight after 6 months of winter in the wasteland otherwise known as Utah. I finally departed at about 3:30 back to my car--with a much lighter load after emptying my ice chest.

I got home, and here I am with the worst sunburn I think I've ever had in my life. I need to move back to a place with sunlight. This is ridiculous.

Comments

StacyB said…
Most people are not as bright as the overcast sun in HB...Sorry lovey, but you look nice and tan to me. Those Utahns are going to know who is Hawaiian! :)

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