Now that the cold winter blues have dissipated and the sweet, sweet scent of salted air and banana infused sunscreen invade my senses and send me into a summer daze, I feel ready to take on the rest of the long-awaited break from lengthy papers and raging headaches. A short trip to the beach was just the remedy to cure the forty hour work weeks I was leaving behind in Pennsylvania. However, the beach was not the intended destination of this mini vacation; my mom, my younger brother, my sister, and I packed my average-sized car to the brim, hopped in, and drove the twelve plus hours to Paris Island, South Carolina to attend my sister’s boyfriend’s Marine boot camp graduation.

A road trip with my family is always an adventure before the real adventure begins. It’s like an action-packed prequel to an already mediocre movie rated a whopping 7% on Rotten Tomatoes. Everything that you think could potentially go wrong, normally goes wrong. When my brother graduated from Air Force boot camp in 2015, we traveled to Texas in what I like to refer to as “The Man Van.” This hunk of tin was a 12-year-old Chrysler Voyager – the typical soccer mom mobile – that broke down two hours into a two-day trip somewhere in Maryland. After eight hours in a random car dealership, the real fun finally began. The reason “The Man Van” broke down was because a wonky sensor was causing the hunk of tin to buck like a bull in a country bar trying to toss the sloshed white girl across the room. When we left the dealership, we were hopeful that “The Man Van” would perform like a spring chicken; instead, it performed like the geezer it was before the mechanic’s enhancements. We spent two days in a bucking hunk of tin, and it was an interesting experience to say the least.

While something this dramatic was not highly anticipated this time around, I did expect some minor setbacks. I am here to tell you that not one thing has gone terribly wrong thus far, besides the many turn-arounds because none of us can properly read a GPS. I don’t really remember the twelve hours in the car because I slept for most of them, which means I have to drive the entire way back. I’m not thrilled. Once we finally arrived, my mom sent my sister and I into the hotel to check-in because everything was in my name. In my opinion, we successfully checked-in and sauntered back to the car ready to shower-off the past twelve hours.

It turns out that my sister and I are not well-versed in inquiring about the basic amenities an establishment like a hotel provides, such as the ice machine, the complementary breakfast dining area, and the location of the room. We knew none of this as we spent a good fifteen minutes driving around the lot trying to figure out the location of the room, and once we stepped out of the car our glasses immediately fogged up. We definitely weren’t in the temperate deciduous climate of the north-east anymore.

The highlight of the trip so far has been waking up this morning for a hot, free breakfast. My family is notorious for taking advantage of anything complementary. We take anything from hotel shampoos, conditioners, and the awful scented bars of soap to maps of places we’ll never go and the crusts from someone’s sandwich in a take-out container. The justification for this oddity was that my dad would eat the “leftovers” for lunch. I can see it now … Bob comes into work with the meatloaf his wife made last night, and Bill brought a turkey sandwich he made this morning. My dad shuffles in with a crinkling Styrofoam container filled with the scraps of five different dishes from the night before. It had to be a sight.

But, this morning had to be the most awkward experience in quite a while. Four disheveled humans walked into the dining area only to be met with about twenty Latino workmen starring at us in silence. Mind you, we did look a little frazzled considering we had just rolled out of bed, but you could have heard a pin drop in the cramped dining space. It was one of those moments where everyone freezes and they’re not sure who should make the first move. We made the first move, and when we realized the selection of breakfast foods was basically nothing considering there was one egg and a sausage link left, we decided to go out for breakfast, which was not much better.

After an eventful morning, we finally made it to Caligny Beach, and it was beautiful. The water was warm and calm, and the sand was soft like a blanket. It was the best public beach I’ve seen, and I will definitely be making another a trip sooner rather than later. One downfall about the southern waters is that I always seem to develop an allergic reaction. I walked out of the ocean today and sat out to tan and read a novel, when all of a sudden, I looked down at my thighs and noticed an irritation forming. Just what I needed to raise me up a few notches on the attractiveness scale.

I may look like I have a strange disease on my legs, but that will not keep me from another day at the beach. I will need to stop for coffee along the way to prepare me for what will inevitably be another interesting story to spit for the Internet.