Beaches of the Past

Man 3 day weekends are great. On Friday Shannon and I went down to Laguna to spend some time with my Mom's side of the family. For all the family time we have been spending recently little of it has really been with that side, so we decided to see them for the fourth.

It was very relaxing to be down there. We walked down to the beach and as soon as I hit the sand I knew that I was going to need to really go to the beach and do some body surfing soon. So we called our friends and set up a trip to the beach for the next day.

First we tried the Newport Peninsula. It was a total nightmare, and so we turned around and drove back to PCH. Next we tried Huntington. One of the entrances was completely closed because the lot was full and the other had a line of cars probably 50-75 cars in length. Luckily, we got in another way without having to wait in line, so finally we were at the beach. After a couple of minutes doing to awkward sand walk down to the water we were able to find a spot to lay our towels in between the massive throngs of people.

Chris and I hit the water for a little body surfing and quickly found ourselves way too far out and caught in a rip tide, which is funny because as we went further and further out I remember Chris saying, "I don't like to be the furthest one out at the beach." Sure enough the swim back was exhausting. It probably took me 15-20 minutes to swim back in. As I was swimming I saw the lifeguards looking at me with the binoculars making sure I was ok. I finally got to the shore out of breath and looked back to see Chris struggling his way back. He must not have looked quite as good through the binoculars, because a life guard ran out and "rescued" him looping that red floaty thing over his top half and dragging him back to shore.

So I got my beach fix in, but man was I disappointed with the state of our beaches. I know it was a holiday weekend but the whole beach was full of trash including the water. I would catch a wave and on the way in get hit in the face buy a candy bar wrapper. It is really disappointing that the people at the beach these days don't have the same respect as people of the past. As I was walking up the beach to head home I picked up a few pieces of trash that were within reach to drop off at a trash can and people looked at me as if they were thinking, "Oh my god! Is he a convict? Or is he just doing community service?" It is really sad that things are that bad.

At any rate, Sunday was pretty relaxing. Some Korean short Ribs and a movie for dinner. I stayed up a little bit too late last night, but when I got to work today I was so refreshed and energized that I got more done today than I did all last week. Now I understand why Europeans have so many vacation days and why companies are allowing employees to work four ten-hour shifts instead of five eights.