Beach 2011

If my face were my friend, and I treated my friend like how I treated my face Saturday, we would no longer be friends. As a matter of fact, if my face could slap me right now, it would.

Other parts of my body would too. Like my back, and a random strip of flesh across my hips that must have been exposed when the wind lifted my tank top up.

Moral of the story, you should never, ever fall asleep on your stomach on the beach. Or at least, be me and fall asleep on the beach.

I applied sunscreen, but admittedly it wasn’t made for much protection because it was SPF 6, which if you ask my mother, is like wearing a condom with a hole in it – no protection at all. I did not put any on my face, or on the random strip of flesh across my hips. Sunscreen EPIC FAIL.

So today I sat on a pillow so I didn’t have to have the leather touch my sensitive legs, and now I’m sitting on my jacket in my office chair. I brought moisturizer for my face, and ask my colleague and friend periodically to please inspect it for blisters. Everyone tells me there are no blisters and that it’ll be a nice tan…when it’s not so flipping angry.

Last night, my mom bought me enough Gatorade and vitamin water to float a small boat or canoe, and I lubed up with Aloe Vera before bed and at 4 a.m. I was more nervous about my shower this morning then any other shower in my life, but surprisingly it felt good? Mostly it felt good to wash my hair that I hadn’t washed in three days.

Who wants to wash their hair on a beach getaway?

That was the first big question my friend and I faced at 5 o’clock Saturday morning getting ready to leave for our grand adventure. She was throwing ice from her ice-maker into our small cooler sitting on the counter, and I’d just rolled out of bed in my moo-moo and hair a-mess.

“Are you showering?”

“No.”

“Neither am I. Let’s be rebellious.”

So we were. All weekend long.

We did not make a hotel reservation, we got cranky when we went too long without eating, we self-indulged on mimosas at 11 a.m. on a Sunday, we drank two margaritas at dinner Saturday and then hiked a couple miles to the beach front. We were honked at, cat-called, and yelled at. We oohed and aahed over menu designs and ate twice at one restaurant because it was that good.

When two newspaper editors hit the road for a rebellious weekend, it includes things like picking out gas stations with “national average” gas prices, and commenting on grammatical errors on billboards.

“Sometimes, grammatically incorrect words are okay. But “get wetter” just sounds stupid.”

And what would be a road trip without doing some last minute editing on the road, and questioning the editorial decisions made by every newspaper we saw in gas stations along the way?

We were in Corpus Christi for about 28 hours, but it was relaxing, peaceful, and the beach get-away we’d been spontaneously planning for about a week.

Now, I just have to convince my face it was worth it. And get back on its good side.