The Beach, for the last time this year.

Too much is going on right now. School is right around the corner, Elena still needs to get her car on the road and we went to the beach.
       Several weeks ago, the girls wanted to go down to the beach again. Nancy was going to take the day off and ask if Michele could go again. I wasn't anxious for them to go again. So I decide to go with them. Then I find out Michele couldn't.
      August is the start of riptides and a few days before we go a hurricane forms in the southern Atlantic. I start to have second thoughts on going. Bad things happen to other people until they happen to you. A second hurricane forms in the Atlantic. The first goes toward Florida. The second heads up the coast way out to sea with no chance of hitting land. That is the one causing the riptides.
        The day before we are to leave I'm leaning towards not going. Teri says just go, if they can't
going in the water, they can't. The weather forecast is for late rain., the sky in Rockland is overcast.

       We head over to Nancy's a little before 9. We pick her up and with Elena driving, Nastia as co-pilot (the death seat), Nancy behind the driver and I'm behind Nastia we head off for the beach. Up the Thruway, onto the Garden State all goes well. Somewhere around the Raritan Bay Bridge the sun even comes out and it is looking like we are driving out of it. I think that was mile marker 130 or so. By the time we reach the split in the Garden State it is overcast and Elena pulls into the rest stop. We rest and I take over driving. The Sky has gotten dark ,but it still shows no sign of rain. That is until we reach mile marker 115. It starts has a harmless sprinkle that would stop at any moment and does, until it starts up again. It's still light and the wipers on the slowest setting are over matching it. Then suddenly I need to turn them up and then up again, and again until they are going at a regular speed. It's not looking good, but we are still a ways away. It doesn't improve as we approach exit 82, but we are going to Perkins to eat breakfast so it will blow over by the time we are done.
      I haven't gone to Perkins in about twenty years. I remember the last time we went. It was a

Sunday, the Mustang was new and it was a bright sun shining day. I put the top down and we took a long drive to Parsippany New Jersey to the Perkins on Route 46. The drive was fabulous  just like the weather. I had the best pancakes I ever had or maybe it was just the great feeling of taking a morning to do something wasteful and have the money to do it without thinking about it twice. Even Teri didn't say no, it's wasteful, it was but we had a great time. When I asked her to do it a second time that was when Teri's distaste of wastefulness kicked in. So one day when I was in the area working for Consolidated Dairies, I stopped in to have pancakes. They were good, but not as good as the first time. A year or so later the Perkins closes. So now almost twenty years later here I am inside a
Perkins looking forward to pancakes. I hadn't noticed they took the word pancakes out of the name. I open the monu and I see a few breakfast items and a couple of pages of lunch and dinner items. I don't even remember seeing pancakes on the menu. I settle on french toast. Nastia has a bacon salad. Elena has caesar salad. Nancy has a sandwich. So much for breakfast. The food was good, just not like I remember it. Of course the rain doesn't let up, it even gets heavier. I call my mom, she says it's partly sunny and dry in Rockland, of course.
      I confront our intrepid party with the facts. It's rain, it's cold and it doesn't look as if it will stop. I want to go home. The three of them say let's hang out a little longer and see what the beach and boardwalk are like, so we go.
      Parking is cheap, five dollars, Nancy pays. We run across the street to Lucky Leo's in a cold rain. We enter a an air conditioned game parlor. Nastia and I are cold. We walk to the other side to the boardwalk. Rain is coming down dripping off the canopy on to us. We decide to walk along under the overhangs getting occasionally wet, other times getting accosted by game owners telling us free throw, free throw!
     

 Nastia gets so cold she asks to go back to the car and change out of her bathing suit to jeans and a real shirt. I go with her and when we return we can't find Nancy and Elena. I head to the men's room and when I'm back they have shown up. They had been on the beach and they said it was fun. Nastia wants to go, I'm still cold not having bought a jacket. I'm in a tee shirt and jeans, wet and cold. I have Nancy's umbrella to divert the wind. We get ice cream and I am so cold I pass having some. Nastia and Elena get cones and Nancy gets a dish. We then stop for Lemonade before we go. Walking down the boardwalk, the rain slacking off to a light drizzle I am asked if we could go on the beach for just a little while to say goodbye to the beach until next year. We go I take pictures of the girls and Nancy collecting
sea shells. We hang out about forty minutes. The wind kicks up, then slacks off. Mercifully the rain has stopped. Nastia asks to go in the water, I ask her if she has clothes to change into, she says no. I tell her it is up to her. She goes in up to her knees. A few waves splash her and get her wet almost head to toe. She doesn't care she is having fun. Elena continues to collect shells.
With full pockets (Nancy's pocket, they handed all the shells to her) we leave the beach until next year. At the car towels are put up over some windows and Nastia changes out of her jeans and wet shirt putting on her bathing suit cover. She seems comfortable. Elena, who still has her street clothes changes into their dryness. All is good.
 
The ride home is wet and rainy. Traffic for a Wednesday in late August is heavy, but moving. I drive because it has been raining. No one complains. Elena does offer to drive and I consider it, but we are south of the oranges and I want to drive through them during rush hour. Afterward we don't stop so she doesn't get to drive. We arrive home safely sometime around seven at night. It was a weird day at the beach.
     





















c