We left when dad got off work at 5:00 on an early summer evening. Everything had been packed and put in the car during the afternoon, waiting for the moment when we could jump in and go! We were going to Mexico, to the ocean, to swim! Man, were we excited!
Dad and his buddies had been planning this trip to Rocky Point for months. Mr. McKinnen, a fellow dad worked with at the High School, had a vacation trailer he would pull, another family had a camper, and we had a tent. We would drive together, cross the border, and hopefully get to Rocky Point sometime around 9:00 so we could set up camp on the beach and be ready to spend the next two days surfing, swimming, fishing and sunning. It was going to be so much fun!
Well, for us kids and the guys, anyway. I'm not sure mom was as excited. Julie was only a year old, and mom wasn't that big on camping on a sandy beach in the hot sun with a little baby. But she was a good sport.
I guessI fell asleep on the way, because the first thing I remember was getting out of the car in the dark, looking for the ocean. I couldn't see it. I was groggy and disoriented but Dad put up a couple of cots and called, "Gale, Linda, I've got your beds ready for you." I staggered over the sand to the cot, climbed into a sleeping bag, and lay down. The sky above me was inky black with a million stars shining down. It was amazing! Suddenly the excitement of being in Mexico, next to the ocean, hit me! I could hear the surf rushing over a rocky beach not far away, and smell salt on the air as a cool breeze rushed over the sand dune we were camped behind. Maybe I hadn't been able to see the ocean yet, but I knew we were there!
Dad worked with the other men, setting up camp, but he didn't put up our tent that night. Instead he layed a big tarp on the sand, where he and mom, with Julie and the boys, slept. Linda and I got to keep our old army cots. I lay on the tawt canvas and watched the stars. Suddenly a streak of light flashed across the sky, then another, and another. "Wow!" "Look at that!" "No, look over there!" There goes another one," people were exclaiming off in the dark. It was so cool! I'd never seen a shooting star before. Every few minutes another streak of light would zip across the sky, but starring into the heavens soon made me sleepy again, and the next thing I knew the hot morning sun was beating down on my face and I remembered I was at the ocean!
I couldn't wait to get down to the water! We couldn't see it from camp since we were set up on the other side of a big sand dune, but I could feel it in the air. Funny how the sun shown so hot on us, yet the air itself was kind of wet and almost cool. Mom made us eat some breakfast while dad set up the tent. He had been up for awhile, looking around with the other men, and they had discovered something disturbing in the sand. Sidewinder tracks zigzagged across the desert, under our cars, between the tables, and close to the tarp where Julie still slept on a pile of sleeping bags. Mom was a good sport, but she encouraged dad to get the tent up quickly. Plus, we needed shade.
As soon as there was a place for us to change into swimming suits Linda and I ran in and put ours on. We were so excited to get down to the ocean! Keith and Phillip had already put on their trunks, but dad called us as we started to run over the hill. "Come back and get your shirts!"
"Why?" I wanted to know. "We're going swimming, dad!"
"I know, but I want you to keep a shirt on while you swim," he answered as he poured syrup over the pancakes he had just put onto his paper plate. The plates were wobbly, and two pancakes were enough to collapse the plate if you didn't hold it with both hands.
"But I wanted to get a suntan," I complained. "You can't get a suntan with a shirt on, dad."
"I don't care," dad answered sharply. "You keep you shirts on today!"
"Man," I grumbled as I turned and headed back for the top of the hill. Linda looked at me sideways, but she didn't say anything. She was only seven, so she didn't care much about getting a suntan. Anyway, she was blond and fair, and she got burned easily. Keeping a shirt on wasn't a big deal to her. I, on the other hand, was ten years old and knew I wasn't going to get sunburned. I had dark brown hair and dark skin that never burned. Plus it was hot in the sun, and what was the point of wearing a swim suit if you had to keep your shirt on? "Dad was just being dad," I thought. "It won't really matter."
We topped over the rise of the hill, and what a fantastic sight met our eyes. The ocean! It was so big, and so flat, and so cool! It wasn't the turquoise blue green I had imagined. I'd grown up reading the Brother's Grimm's "
Littlest Mermaid," and when they described the blue-green ocean I imagined it to be the same color as my blue-green crayolas, the blue-green shag carpet in my bedroom, and the blue-green color of dad's (and my) eye's. This Mexican ocean was more a dusty blue with white foam and light green and tan and gray, but it was so huge!
We could immediately see why this place was called Rocky Point. The tide was out as we ran to the beach, and the wet sand soon gave way to a wide stretch of glistening rocks that stretched for yards between the sand and the water, creating pools and ponds deep enough to swim in, where all kinds of little fish and crabs and snails and even tiny octopus hid among the most fascinating clumps of sea plants and shells. It was so cool!
Long strands of slimy, plastic looking light brown sea weed lay stretched over the rocks. Phillip immediately picked up a wet bunch of this stuff and threw it at us. Linda and I screamed and ran away, but there was so much to see we didn't run far.
Keith was already exploring tide pools, looking for star fish and octopus, happily wondering farther and farther out towards the ocean. Linda and I stayed together, exclaiming over the little fish we could see darting through the water.
The sun was hot, and dad was on the other side of the sand dune, eating breakfast. After that he and the other men were going fishing someplace, so I knew he wasn't coming down to the beach any time soon. "Why be hot with my stinking stupid shirt on?" I reasoned. "I'm at the ocean, for heaven's sake!" and with that I tore off my shirt, threw it on the sand where it wouldn't get wet, and revelled in the feeling of the cool breeze blowing over my bare shoulders.
We played and played on the rocks and in the tide pools. Phillip found an old arrow someone had left on the beach, and he used it to poke among the rocks and plants, chasing fish out so he could see them better. When he found a big old dead crab he speared it with the arrow and called out for us to come see.
"Ewwwwe, gross," Linda and I both exclaimed, as he held the dripping wet crab up for us to examine. That was all the encouragement he needed to start chasing us with the disgusting thing. Eight year old boys can be soooooooooo annoying! We screamed and ran, and Phillip grinned and chased, and it was all lots of fun until I jumped over a boulder and stubbed my toe into a smaller rock hidden on the other side, tearing my big toenail in half. Man, it hurt! Bleeding and aching, I washed my toe in a pool of water, grabbed my shirt from the sand, and stomped up the hill and back to camp so mom could doctor my foot.
There wasn't much to be done. She wrapped my toe in gauze and tape, but it throbbed. I went back down to the beach but it wasn't much fun sitting on the sand. My foot hurt too much to walk on, and I didn't want to go swimming even when the tide came in because the salt water stung. I was pretty cross.
I was crosser still that night. Mom and dad got to sleep on the cots. Sleeping bags literally covered every inch of the floor in our tent, where we four kids slept crowded next to each other. Only I couldn't sleep. My toe ached, but my back burned! I had such a sunburn! Darn that stupid old shirt I left lying on the sand. I only had it off for a few hours in the morning, but I guess that's all the Mexican sunshine takes to fry even dark skin to a crisp. It hurt to lay on my back, it hurt to lay on my side, it hurt to lay on my stomach because of my toe. It hurt no matter which way I turned, and there weren't a lot of choices in that crowded tent. But I guess I learned my lesson. At least, I still remember that when dad tells me to do something, I really ought to pay attention.
