Days at the Beach

My youngest son had a playdate/sleepover at his buddy's last weekend. I promised W we would do something special, just us. What did he want to do? "Let's go to the beach!"

Crap. How about the pool? "No. The beach."

When I lost my license, the thing I cried about the most was that I wouldn't be able to drive my kids to the beach this summer. It's one of my favorite things to do--throw the boogie boards and the cooler in the car and just go. We're all happier at the beach.

And, as it turns out, it's ridiculously hard to get to the beach by bus from my house. So what to do? Because I really want to go to the beach now, too. The usual suspects for giving us a lift were unavailable, or had been pressed into service too often of late. (I try not to wear out my welcome). So I called a car service--Terramoto Transportation. They have a fleet of Priuses, all painted black with a cool hummingbird logo in green. They charge about what a cab would cost, but plant a tree for every ride you take. Nice, right?

It cost me $40 each way. They were friendly and let me stop at the store on the way back home. Not cheap, but nothing about this gig has been cheap. Water was icy, but W and I ate chocolate chip cookies and had a blast.

My friend Cindy and I hit the same beach, sans kids, the next day. We wore our bikinis and pretended we were in high school again.

And on Labor Day, my dad called and invited me to ride the 9 mile-trail to the beach from my neighborhood. It was an awesome ride. When we got to the beach, we hit the taco stand for chorizo breakfast burritos and called my stepmom to come get us.

I really have nothing to complain about. Life is good.