National Lampoons Beach Vacation

9/27/17: I wrote this a few years ago before our last trip to the beach with dad. It ended up being a fairly rough week for dad. He had just finished 10 days of whole brain radiation, leaving him burned from the neck up, bald and fairly miserable. His mouth, eyes and scalp really hurt. Mom had a hard time keeping him comfortable. He was really dizzy, loosing a lot of fluid by way of urine. It was hard to keep his fluids up and pain managed. We all fretted over him all week. But there were some good moments too. I'll talk about those another time. So here's this pre-vacation, optimistic post about my favorite vacation spot. Its weird for me to read it as I was a very different person.
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6/30/15:  After a particularly rough water week at Nags Head, NC, my parents decided not to return. I got stuck in a rip tide and dad had to come and help me to safety. When you get caught in a rip tide you have to swim with the direction of the water until you make it back to shore.  It took a while. Luckily, dad was young and healthy and a damn good swimmer. But we both got beat up pretty good. That was the turning point for my parents. Vacation shouldn't be deadly. The following fall of 1988, Dad was mentioning the dilemma of where to go to the beach to a friend and they mentioned Sunset Beach, NC.

Over the years, we’ve collectively tried various locations and situations for our beach vacation. We’ve been to Pawley’s Island, Edisto Beach, Holden Beach, Duck, Carolina Beach and Rodanthe. We have had cousins, aunts, uncles and grand parents join us. In the end, there is only one place we want to plant our asses for a week: Sunset Beach, NC. Sunset is our home away from home. Its kicked back and anything you can't get on the island, you can get on a short car ride inland.

There are some specific things I'd like to describe for you in list form, in no particular order.

1. The Island Market: There's something about the smell of this place. It smells like salt, AC, and sunscreen. Always moderately friendly folks behind the counter. Always an ample supply of junk food, cheer wine/sundrop and t-shirts. 

2. The Sunset Beach Pier: Its old, ya'll. Its probably been rebuilt many times and it ain't fancy. Plenty of room for all the fisher-folk and their gear at any time of the day. And don't tell my mom, but you can buy beer by the can and junk food. 

3. The worlds last swing bridge: They built a new fancy bridge and retired the swing bridge back in 2010. They were smart, though and made it into a museum just off the island.  But if you never had a chance drive over it when it was in service, you missed out on lines of well dress, slightly burned, just starvin' folks in cars, waiting patiently to exit the island to go get some rockin' seafood platters on the mainland. And lets not forget the sound, that "kachunk-kachunk, kachunk-kachunk" as your car drove over the bumps of the old bridge. During high tide, the middle of the bridge would be elevated. If you were driving too fast? Airborne. 

4. Julie's Sweet Shop and Rentals: When I was a kid, half of this place was an old school arcade. Complete with rockin' tunes, dirty floors and barefoot, unattended kids in bathing suits. In recent years, its just a beach rental place and ice cream shop. This place is a true beach shack, probably held together with particle board and staples. We love it though. Tons of little kids sitting on the outside benches with way too huge servings of melting ice cream falling on the ground to the waiting, swarming ants in the sand. As far as rentals go though, I'd probably recommend someplace else. The bikes are pretty rough, the prices are a bit too high and if you go over to Yelp for a review, its not pretty. Other off-island places will still deliver to Sunset, with better customer service. You're welcome. (Update: This place was just a shell after years of termites. It is now just a little shack where you can rent a bike. The sweets be gone, but not the memories.)

5. Kathy: My mom is the baddest of the beach bitches on the block. Mom's been spear heading trips to the beach for most of my 35 years. Some have been better than others, but that's just part of the adventure. She would have that brochure in hand by January and would spend days scouring the pages for the perfect rental house. She would spend the spring counting the days, watching Summer Rental, getting a box ready with staples for the kitchen, planning the route, etc. It was a hunting and gathering extravaganza.  And somehow, for years and years, we made this trip, 3 then 4 of us, usually in a 4 door sedan. That's right, mom didn't move up to a larger vehicle until I was in high school. We are master packers, apparently. And when it came to loading the car, that's something I can only compare to putting the lights up on the Christmas tree: painful, yet beautiful.

6. Terry: My dad knows how to slow his life down for a week, which is such an important lesson to learn and pass on to my kids. Now that dad has cancer, its a lesson that is coming in very handy.  When we were at the beach, he would sleep in, go for long walks around the island, play in the water with us and go hunt up the best fresh seafood for dinner. In his younger days, back up on the Outer Banks, he'd rent a para-sail or water ski and ride the sound to his hearts content. Once or twice, he went hang gliding in the dunes of Kitty Hawk. He has many more adventures in store.

I realize that you can't have Terry and Kack for your vacation, but they wrote the book and I want to share their secrets. Here are the

• Vacation isn't always perfect, nor should it be.
• Its good to get the hell out of town. Staycations are very popular because travel can be expensive, but its so good for your head to get in a new space. There is a place for you at the right price, just keep looking. You don't have to spend alot of money for it to be meaningful.
• Some people can't sit still on vacation. This isn't a feeling I can relate to, personally. The journey is so long, I just want to sit still when I arrive. But everyone has their own ideas of how vacation should go. Do you. 
• Eat and drink what the hell you want.