vaca

Oh the joy of vacations that last two days. I apologize for the lack of an update in 5 days. I was about to get a written diaryland citation by Oz. Thankfully, he let it slide. He�s such a nice young man.

Ok, so where to begin. Well, the trip started off with the drive down, which was not interesting until we got closer to the Outer Banks and I got to see the wonderful sites of rural North Carolina. My favorite house/trailer on the way down had four plastic palm trees in the front yard. I knew they were plastic because unlike real palm trees that have brownish-grey colored trunks and fronds of green, these were solid colors that were not found in nature. Unless I am mistaken (which happens often) I do not believe there is a species of palm that is florescent pink, yellow, blue, or orange. I curse myself every day for not taking a picture, although to do so, I would have had to put the hazards on and stopped in the middle of the road since there was no shoulder. The speed limit was 45, so I was going about 70 and I knew if I had Dr. C take the picture it would have been blurry anyway. 400-speed film can only get you so far.

We get to the house after passing it several times and walk out to see the ocean. I haven�t been to the beach in god knows how long and it was way too good to be out there. The weather was beautiful, and we had stopped at the grocery store beforehand and had more food then we knew what to do with. I was told before arriving that we would be �on our own� as far as food and drinks were concerned, which was fine by us. I should have taken into account that this was my mother. I should have known that she had things for us and when we brought our food in she would say, �Why did you bring all this?� This was said of a 12 pack of beer that was gone that night. Surprised? I think not.

So, it was time to test the water. I was hoping for some seriously fun waves and bodysurfing. Since the hurricane had just run through there, I thought the surf would be more violent than it was. The waves were 4 feet at best. There were a couple of 5-foot waves, but they were all breaking right on the sand. The wind/rain from the hurricane apparently got rid of all the sandbars and after you walked in the water you would suddenly drop.

Dr. C and I went in anyway and found this quite shocking as I was not quite ready to get the swimsuit wet when all of the sudden�BAM I dropped about 4 feet. With my suit all wet and me suddenly having to tread water, we suddenly noticed a big-ass wave coming right for us. Not planning to get his hair wet, Dr. C. was not pleased. There was nowhere to run so we braced for impact. Unfortunately, I just sort of let the wave take me instead of trying to swim through it or under it. It�s funny that right where the waves were breaking is also where Mother Nature decided to deposit all the pebbles and jagged shell pieces. Normally I would just call it nature�s pedicure, but this was more along the lines of nature�s belt-sander. Thanks Nature!

I didn�t get scraped up or anything, but I was a little confused at first and of course as soon as you wipe off your face and look back, there�s another wave ready to say �hello.�

We drifted in the water for a while and I almost lost control of my bladder when Dr. C let out a shriek when he caught a big piece of black rubber out of the corner of his eye and suspected something deadly.

Reason # 358 that Eric needs a digital camera: I did a similar thing only in shallow water when a piece of kelp wrapped itself around my leg and I did sort of a freak-out dance trying to get it off. Since I couldn�t see through the water, I figured it was the worst-case scenario. My face got all nervously looking and I sort of hopped about while slapping my legs and hopping on one foot.

That night, I was getting ready to get in the shower so I took off the swimsuit and suddenly heard the sound of change dropped all over the floor. I look down to see a collection of pebbles that my pockets/banana hammock had been saving for me.

The next day I went on a 3-mile run with my Dad, Dr. C., and a family friend that had rented the house with my parents. Let�s talk about how much I was hurting for the rest of that day plus the following three days. My hip muscles still haven�t forgiven me.

The second day offered more of the same, but this time I got to lay out some more since the day we arrived it was already 2:00 and my parents had already taken their leave from the sand. I sunbathed for a little bit with my mom as we decided to watch my Dad go out and attempt to body surf the waves. What I saw was magnificent and made me clap. My dad actually got a decent sized wave and picked it up fine. Since the waves didn�t have much room to break, they went straight up and down. My dad got to the crest of the wave, rode if for about to seconds, and suddenly the wave dropped his ass like a hot potato. Not to be out done by the wave, my dad got up, stumbled a bit from the recent impact and was attempting to pull his shorts up a bit all while stumbling back into the water. I had no choice but to clap. The Atlantic was not about to spit him out like that�but it did, at least one more time.

I can�t say too much else exciting happened at the beach. The night skies were gorgeous, the beach was pretty, and I didn�t have to be at work.

We left on Friday afternoon and got home in record time and spent most of the night laying around like lazy bums. Saturday offered the opportunity for laundry and later on that evening we went out with a group of friends to Remington�s, which is a country-western bar out here in D.C. We were in there for maybe an hour when suddenly my good friend Reggie decided it was time to learn how to two-step. He disappeared and then reappeared on the dance floor, two-stepping with someone who turned out to be one of my roommate Mikey�s former friends from college. Good times.

Sunday was lax and I saw the season premier of Alias. Love that show to pieces. Anyway, that�s about all from here. It�s Monday and I�m sick of it. I�m sure I will think of more vacation details, but for right now, it�s the best I can do. Here are some pictures though�fun times. I got a shitty ass photo disk as opposed to a photo CD so the quality is for shit.

The beautiful Atlantic:

Me basking in the sun:

e.