August 30, 2001

New Hampshire - Day 6: Hampton Beach Fireworks

-Wednesday, July 25, 2001-

8 a.m.

Goodness me. I’m only just beginning Day Six of my vacation, and I’m already on page 42 of my notebook. At that rate, I’ll write 125 pages on this trip. I imagine that will be about 50 or 60 pages of typed, double-space writing. I don’t recall having typed anything so large before. And if I sit here writing about how long this is, it will get longer.

12:46 p.m.

We just left Wal-Mart, which is not only a Wal-Mart but a grocery store. Leen leads the way while Sam pushes the cart, occasionally riding on it. It really seems like only yesterday that I was small enough to fit under the carts so I could ride while my mom pushed.

2:15 p.m.

Sam just cooked homemade Macaroni and Cheese With Toast on Top. I learned the secret to it, and I think I’ll have to try making it when I get home.

We’re now watching a Tiny Toons show called “How I Spent My Summer Vacation.” I’ve never seen Elmyra, the character who first gave my friend Natalie the idea for my online nickname. I had no idea then that years later, I would be watching Tiny Toons for the first time with people who initially only knew me as Ellmyruh.

Later

Wow. I knew Elmyra was a bit psycho, but she’s really psycho! The family in the movie was just singing, “Ninety-Nine bottles of non-alcoholic beverages on the wall.” Now they are at an amusement park, and the best ride is called “Slap Happy.” Everyone piles onto a giant hand and then it lives up to its name by slapping them over onto the ground.

This Elmyra line was hilarious, considering my online nickname: “Say hello to Mommy Elmyra!”

3:50 p.m.

Tiny Toons is done now, and Leen’s asleep on the couch. As soon as she started getting sleepy, Sam went running up the stairs to get her some pillows. I’m been talking to them online when he does this, but seeing it live was great fun. Leen doesn’t have to say anything, but Sam suddenly springs up from his chair, runs toward the stairs, careens around the corner while using the stair railing to catch himself, takes the stairs two at a time in a mad dash (he always runs up and down stairs), thunders overhead to get the pillows from their bedroom, then dashes back down again.

4:37 p.m.

We just watched two claymation videos Sam made in January 1997. He had recently gotten his camcorder and made little creatures out of clay. Then he manually stopped and started the recording, and it took about an hour to do one minute of footage. Those videos were the funniest things, and Sam narrated them, which made it even funnier.

Now Sam is going to cook Tater Tot Casserole, even though Leen usually cooks that meal. I wonder if this will be another funny adventure.

4:50 p.m.

Yes, it’s already interesting. Sam and Leen strain the cream of mushroom soup because they don’t like mushrooms. I got over the humor in that and then laughed when Sam got a funny look on his face: He had forgotten to put a bowl under the strainer before dumping the soup into it. Fortunately, he realized it before he started pushing the condensed soup through the strainer. I ran downstairs to tell Leen, and she had already guessed what Sam had done.

4:58 p.m.

We watched “Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too” tonight. This show had Tigger in it, and it was a very cute movie.

I’ve been meaning to write about Sam’s car door locking habit. He always locks the doors as soon as we close them, and it’s amusing to see if I can catch him doing it. Even observant me doesn’t always notice until we arrive at our destination, and I try to open the car door. My car doors lock automatically when I turn on the car, then unlock when I turn it off, so I’m not used to having to manually unlock my door before getting out. Like me, Sam has a rule that the car doesn’t move until all seatbelts are fastened. In New Hampshire, only those under the age of 18 must wear a seatbelt, but Sam insists that everyone in the car do so.

6:55 p.m.

We’re on the way to Hampton Beach and are now coming to the “Hampton Toll Plaza.” Why it’s called a plaza, I’m not sure.

-Thursday, July 26, 2001-

1:20 a.m.

I’ll see how far I get with this before I get too tired to write anymore.

The drive to Hampton Beach was beautiful, of course. We passed very green marshes, and I actually had to ask what they were. They’re apparently connected to the ocean, because the water level rises and lowers with the tides.

We got to Hampton Beach at 7:10 and fed the parking meter enough quarters to last until 10. (A quarter bought us 10 minutes of time, which seemed rather high. However, it was cheaper than parking in the flat-fee parking lot.) Then we walked along the crowded boardwalk and looked at the shops. Earlier in the afternoon, Leen had cracked us up by “foreseeing” fried dough covered with hot fudge in her near future. Naturally, she had to get her fried dough with hot fudge when we got to Hampton Beach.

As we walked along the boardwalk, we passed a McDonald’s where they were advertising a lobster sandwich. I had certainly never seen that before, but apparently it’s a common McDonald’s menu item in New England. Then we walked back the way we had come, passing a man selling glow sticks. We gave him a second glance when we realized that his mouth was glowing; he had a glow stick in his mouth and was using it as a unique marketing scheme.

We passed a playground that appealed to Sam and me, but a sign said the maximum age limit was 12. A store called “Blink’s Fry Doh” caught our attention, and later, on our way out, we saw—

8:04 a.m.

It looks like I fell asleep in mid-sentence. I just woke up, and it’s raining outside. It smells so good!

Anyway, to pick up where I left off last night, we wandered along the boardwalk for a while, then went down to the beach. We all (even Sam) took our shoes off and walked in the soft, cool sand. As we got closer to the water, the sand got cooler and soon we got to the wet part. I hadn’t even touched the waves, but my feet were already freezing after merely making contact with the wet sand. However, you can’t get that close to the ocean and not really touch it, so we walked just far enough so that waves could come over our feet. Sam and Leen were laughing at me, so I think I must have made funny noises and faces when the cold water hit my feet.

Then we all lay down on the blanket—which had horses on it, of course—and looked up at the sky. It was quite comfortable, and if we tilted our heads back far enough, we could look at the lights behind us upside down. That reminded Sam of when he was in his ninth grade gym class and the teacher sent him to the school counselor. Sam had been doing things like spinning in circles while watching the ceiling and hanging upside down in order to see things from a different view. When asked why he was doing that, Sam said, “Because it looks neat.” When his teacher asked him why he was doing other similar things, Sam couldn’t explain, other than mumbling, “I don’t know.” His teacher apparently didn’t like that answer.

We lay there for a while, and then Sam dug a lawn chair (or “chaise longue”) for me in the sand. Leen taught him the trick long ago, and now it has been passed on to me. You dig a hole in the sand, then heap the dirt at one end to create a backrest and pillow. Then you put a towel in it, and you’ve got yourself an amazingly comfortable chair right there in the sand. Sam and Leen lay on the blanket while I stayed in my sand chair, and it was so incredibly peaceful and relaxing.

The fireworks started at 9:30, and that was another delight. After the fireworks faded and the remaining smoke faded away, we lay there for a while. There’s really nothing quite like sitting on the beach under the night sky while gentle ocean breezes brush past you.

All too soon, we were back in the car, waiting in a line of cars all wanting to leave the parking lot. It was dark out, but the lights from the boardwalk gave us plenty of light to see interesting things. “Look, people making out on a motorcycle!” said Sam, and then we laughed because the couple stopped making out. We wondered if they had heard Sam.

Sam and Leen took the sunroof off the car, and we were eventually on our way. We drove home a different way, along a road that followed the coastline. I’m sure it’s gorgeous in the daytime, but it was neat to see it at night. Before we left Hampton, we stopped at a wall between the road and the ocean. In the winter, the waves sometimes come over the wall, so that’s where the camera crews always go to get dramatic storm footage. Sam and I had to climb up on the wall, of course.

We were nearing Somersworth when we got the idea to stick our heads out the sunroof. Leen couldn’t do it because she was driving (although she briefly tried, which was another amusing adventure), but Sam and I did it. It was a neat feeling, especially since we were driving fairly fast, and we all laughed. In-person laughter simply cannot be repeated online, although we make a valiant effort to recreate it.

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