I start out heading toward the highway. I know there is construction all over town, so I head north into the next town, planning to slip onto the highway from a busier entrance ramp, but NOOOOOOO. The entire road is shut down, which I discover after a hundred of my closest friends and I get stuck in the back up. I do what any impatient driver does and pull a u-ey in the middle of the crowded street.
Luckily, 495 interweaves the Merrimack Valley multiple times, and I gain access by driving into Lawrence near the mill buildings along the river. Unluckily, I have wasted ten minutes of my time going around random roadwork construction sites.
No sooner do I make it onto the highway when traffic starts backing up. The culprit this time is not construction. No, it is a groundhog that is meandering across three lanes of traffic. Yup, Punxsutawney Phil is on his way to the beach, too.
Traffic isn't too horrible, considering most of us are probably trying to reach the coast and the relief of the heatwave that has been gripping us for days. Suddenly, a Toyota Yaris screams by me on the left. A Yaris. A motherfucking YARIS. I try to ease into the passing lane, but there's no egress.
My car and I get stuck behind a flatbed with an old, extremely beaten, rusted-out car frame on it. Plastic semi-covers the missing top half, and it balloons out with the force of the air current at 65 mph. Pieces of plastic start tearing off and flying all over the high way, and, for a brief and terrifying moment,I picture the entire tarp peeling away, careening through the air, and landing across my windshield.
I manage to maneuver my car around the flatbed as I near the 495/95 merge. Signs warn drivers "RIGHT LANE CLOSED AHEAD!" I plan accordingly and merge left. This turns out to be futile as it is really the LEFT LANE that suddenly disappears.
Low tide is on its way, so the entire beach is open for a long walk. I lock everything into my car except my keys, my phone with the Map My Walk app, and a pair of glasses to read my phone. I walk all the way to the end of the beach, where the rock outcropping meets the sand. It smells funky here, a little fishy, because the gulls drop shellfish here and peck away at the meat, leaving the crustaceous carcasses behind in pieces.
My plan is to hit the bathroom before I set up my sand chair, so I walk past my original starting point. As I near the steps leading to the bath house, there is a girl building a sand castle with the help of her father. She pours water into a moat while her dad sits in the sand working the pail. I notice he has a tattoo across his back that is lines and lines of text. It looks like he has a chapter of Harry Potter from shoulder to shoulder to flank.
The sun catches him just right and I realize that the way he is sitting exposes most of his ass crack. Yup, his ass cheeks are in the sand, and his crack smiles sideways at anyone and everyone who walks by. This is a little unsettling since his butt is parked in the sand where the busload of children has set up camp for the day. By the time I make my return trip a few minutes later, the man, the girl, and the sand building have all disappeared, possibly via his enormous ass crack.
I'm only at the beach temporarily; I'm on my way to Maine for lunch, but I have enough time leftover after my walk for a quick dip in the ocean (water is surprisingly warm this summer). Recalling my trouble getting this far, I add on an extra fifteen minutes to my commute. Turns out I should add more time, but that's a tale for another day, like tomorrow. Stay tuned.
