After being home on summer vacation for almost 6 weeks, the weather was finally nice enough to go to the beach this week! (This weekend will be the first in 14 weekends that it has not rained). So despite a nagging cold, my dear friend Danielle Cloutier & I packed up our stuff and headed for Hampton. A construction traffic jam delayed us a bit, and I was reminded of the drive back to school from Easter break when Malinda started blowing bubbles out the window at the trucks. Unfortunately, I couldn't reach my bubbles. Aside from that, the drive there was a breeze. (But that's probably because Dani's window sticks when you roll it down and she didn't tell me until after the fact. It took the whole trip for me to raise it, centemeters at a time). We camped out on a nice patch of sand right near the middle of the boardwalk. Even though it was a Tuesday, the place was packed. Dani pulled out her SPF 45 and I reached for the 15. (She still managed to burn while I only turned slightly pink). With our sunscreen on and towels strategically placed for maximum sun coverage, we settled in for a relaxing afternoon. After some sunbathing and talking we braved the surf enough to stick our feet in the freezing waters while avoiding splashing children. After a while we resumed sunbathing, although it was abruptly paused for about 10 minutes as a rainshower passed through. It didn't rain that hard, and cleared out a lot of the "wimpier" beach-goers. After a nice afternoon, we packed up and prepared to join the long line of cars on our trek home. I'm so glad I'm not "landlocked" like some of my school friends. I already have plans to go to the beach twice more this weekend and don't know how I'd survive summer in NH without it!