Family Reunion, Further evidence things do not always go according to plans:

Late in July was the family reunion for my mother's side of the family. This is the third year running we have gotten together, and this year it was held at my uncle's house near Atlantic City New Jersey.

For the drive up, we decided to make a detour through D.C. to see if we could visit a few monuments. We first ran into trouble early Friday morning. We were stuck in interstate deadlock for several hours due to a series of accidents ahead of us. We would learn later that an accident involving 4 tractor trailers and 1 car resulted in a terrible fire that consumed everything but the cab of the front most truck, the tail end of the hindmost trailer, and the frame of the car. While the drivers of the big rigs survived, the two people in the car were not so lucky. We saw only the wreckage pass us on several flatbeds headed south, and the equipment tearing up and repaving the road at the site of the accident. There was also another tractor trailer on its side in the ditch here, a secondary accident caused by the traffic related to the first, and a situation just not high on the priority list this morning.

Finally, we arrived in D.C. hoping, with the few spare minutes we had left for a stopover, to see the sites. But unable to find parking, we merely circled about the monuments and the white house. As we drove up Constitution Ave. to the intersection with Pennsylvania, a policeman drove his car abruptly across our lane. He jumped out and began clearing the traffic from Pennsylvania, one hand on his holstered gun. This younger thinner Denzel Washington shouted at pedestrians crossing the street and a car that thought it could sneak around. Moments later, a motorcade passed, going from the white house to the Capitol Building. The limousines were flying the flags of the Commander in Chief. Having seen more than we could have expected with such little time to spend, we were on our way again.

Unfortunately, the morning's accident was not a singularity. We navigated several more accidents and lane closures, and a few tolls before finally entering the state of New Jersey. As we turned off the interstate, onto a small two lane highway for the rest of our trip, we though we were in the clear. This was not quite the case. We had not gotten very far before we encountered our last obstacles, a severed telephone pole and the apparently volunteer police. Due to the pole, we were detoured onto even skinnier country roads and looped back to the main highway, roughly half a mile further on. The tractor trailers crept down the roads and carefully navigated the 90 degree turns. After another 45 minutes delay, we were on our way yet again.

After 16 hours in the car, we finally arrived at my uncles house, to find almost everyone had gone to the boardwalk. Not really feeling like good company anyway, we made our way to a local diner, Julianos, where I enjoyed a great meatball sub. This was a bar, a restaurant, and also something of a convenience store. Coolers with beer for purchase lined the far wall.

The next day was spent with family, making food and watching the kids play. In the early afternoon, some, myself and my husband included loaded up in a couple vans and headed to the beach.

I have swam in the ocean along the Carolinas and northern parts of Florida. I found this particular beach surprising because you could walk out a fair distance without a drop off, and yet, there were pretty large waves coming in. We had a pretty good time. What I wasn't so excited about was the fact that the water left my skin slightly sticky to the touch. I have since decided, based on Internet research, that this was likely due to human effluent pumped out by the large metropolis just to the north. But at the time, I was not deterred from swimming. What did finally get me out of the water was a small crab that scuttled across my foot, and mistaking my ring toe for a small fish, grabbed me with his claw, and left me with effectively a deep paper cut across the top of my toe.

Having retreated back to the towels, the kids and a few adults headed up the beach to investigate a dead ray that was beached there. While this didn't exactly improve the beach's image in my mind, it was reassuring to know that Southerners aren't the only ones who poke dead things with sticks. But even we don't touch them.

By the time we returned to our stuff, Jake had gone wandering down the beach in search of us. Then, naturally, he stopped to investigate the rocks there, and found among other things a small starfish that had washed onto the sand. After showing it around to the kids and me, we headed back to the rocks to find it a perch.

On our way back from the beach, my aunt and uncle took us by Lucy the Elephant. You can see a good video about her right here. Things like this really strike my interests, and rest assured, on a return trip, I won't be swimming again, but I will be taking a tour.