SD Camp Out - Day 2 - Ocean Beach

Since this was supposed to be a beach camping trip, we decided to spend our first full day at the beach! I absolutely love the beach, even more so now that I don't have babies any more that I need to chase around. I can really get in and have fun with the rest of them or I can just relax and read a book!

This time we chose Ocean Beach. We had never been there before so we had decided to check it out.

The beach give you a perfect opportunity to toss a ball with Dad or hang out with Grandpa.

Dylan found this long strand of seaweed. He dragged it around until he found his twin brother and tried to wrap him up in it.

The beginnings of a great sandcastle, no doubt. Grandpa shows Derek how to use a walkie talkie.

Luke was hilarious. I guess he likes the seaweed too because he decided to start a seaweed collection. He dragged several long strands of it over to our spot on the beach and made a big pile. He insisted he was bringing it all home. Our neighbors all got a kick out of him, but we didn't bring any seaweed home with us, much to Luke's disappointment.

Later, Alex and my parents and I decided to take a walk down the beach toward to pier.

Truthfully, Ocean Beach is not that great of a beach. The water, sand, and waves were all pretty good, actually, but the neighborhood is kind of yucky and there are a lot of weirdos there. And the bathrooms were pretty much the nastiest bathrooms I have seen at any beach, anywhere! (And that is really saying something!) The woman's bathroom had only 4 stalls (for the WHOLE beach, and 3 of the stalls were missing doors! That left one stall for all the women on the whole beach - and there were a lot of people there that day.)

Of course, this might have been part of the problem.

This sign really cracked me up and I had to get a picture of it. It says that due to safety concerns, the restrooms were closed. No kidding! Not only were they closed, they were gone all together. There was nothing but a foundation left. I suppose that would be a safety concern!

Too funny.

But the best part of the day was after 6pm, when the life guards leave and most of the people go home. The kid got to pretend they were lifeguards and had most of the beach to themselves.

But for me, the lifeguards leaving meant that we could go surfing where the swimmers and boogie boarders get to be during the daytime. The surf conditions were much better there than where we had been surfing earlier, which made it so much more fun. Plus we got to really spread out and when I am surfing, I like to have some space.

It was so fun surfing with my sister, Lisa. I have been dying to surf again since last September, and it felt so get to get on that board again. Lisa and I both took surfing when we were going to UCSD, and it was so much fun to surf with her again. She is better than I am. I am not good at all. But I can get on both feet, and sometimes even stay on both feet! That is surfing, and that is good enough for me!

My brother Rick is actually a very good surfer, but, alas, he is now in that stage where he has little ones to chase around, so he didn't get a chance to get in the water with us. Been there, done that. That is why I hadn't been on a surfboard in 15 years. Good luck with that, bro!

It was a great day at the beach! Our San Diego trip had finally, really begun!