Cocoa Beach

At some point in the morning while Dad and Joe were using up their Fast Passes at Disney, Oxbear found Francis lying flat on his back on the bed upstairs.

“Uh … you okay, bud?”

With the stomach “issues” this week, we weren’t taking chances.

“Oh. Yeah, yeah. I was just thinking about jet skis.”

“I thought you were supposed to be studying.”

“Well, I am. I mean, I will.”

Francis.

Beach day.

Lazy hour and a half drive or so to Cocoa Beach, passing green fields and Floridian cattle, big swathes of white cloud.

Puck’s first-ever view of the beach – the young man encircled by his inner-tube. It was love at first sight.

A red flag whipped from the lifeguard’s stand as the boys went splashing into the surf.

“They’re out too far, Dad.”

“Tell Francis to come back here!”

“Dad! Linnea shouldn’t be out that far!”

“Dad, look at those kids. They’re going to be sucked out by a rip tide!”

This is the sort of conversation that went down while four or five of us pulled together a makeshift beach tent in the wind and loose sand. By the time it was finally anchored down after Carrie sawed some holes in the back of the tarp with Dad’s nail clippers for less wind resistance, it was time for sub sandwiches, packages of green bean chips, and fat oranges for this very weird group of very obvious Midwesterners huddled in the shade of a small “tent”. I’m pretty sure people were laughing at us by this time.

Then Francis went charging about 30 mph back into the waves and immediately lost his Oakleys. Gone forever. Then Puck swallowed a gut-full of salt water, ran up the beach with a small grove of seaweed in his hand, upchucked all over the beach tent floor, guzzled some water – clearly not bothered – and ran right back into the water before stuffing down his lunch before the drive back.

A few more swims in the pool, clean-up, sacks of Chick-Fil-A, “Fantasia 2000” for some (I guess they were inspired), the game for others. This tribe was headed back home sweet St. Louis home early in the morning.