The Beach Night (a chronicle of life)

I was living in Orlando last year (you know this already, I know). One night I came from work, tired, and wearing the most ridiculous uniform that Disney has... I opened the door to my apartment and there is the other Joel, and he says: "change clothes, right now, we're leaving". "Leaving where?". "We're going to the beach". "What?" "Yes, hurry up, Jeremy will pick us up in 10 minutes". But, the thing was that it had been raining for the past three days, and that day was no exception. (The day before, one of our neighbors went outside to play in the rain, Jamie is her name: "Come on Joel, come down and play in the rain", I was like: "Nope, not happening". I don't know why I didn't do it, but I guess I missed it... Although she was freezing later, I didn't miss THAT!). So, anyway, I said to Joel (the other one): "But it's been raining for the past three days!" "Doesn't matter", he said. And so, I changed clothes, packed a small bag, and 10 minutes later we were gone.

Three things you should know for this story to be more... "understandable". One, the beach is like two hours and a half away from Orlando. Two, there were five of us in the trip, and three had to work the day after. Three, it was midnight already.

So, we're on the road. Jeremy drives. Heather is next to him. Catalina next to me, and Joel on her other side. I (still not in the mood to get rained on in the middle of the night, with the freezing air from the ocean, and miles away from the apartment) asked again: "why are we going to the beach?", and one of the girls goes: "we're going to watch the sunrise..." In my mind I was like: "that's cool". And then, my resistance to the whole thing was gone. Why were we going to the beach in a yet-to-be-rainy night? Just because we wanted, because it was a nice way to waste or spend time and it was cool.

So, the girls played a cd from a Pat Benatar (if I remember the name correctly...) I never heard of her (Pat), but some of the songs were familiar, and old! (wikipedia her).

We're on the road, and half way thru, I yell: "Where is everybody!" Because there were no cars in the street, no cars parked on the sides or at the small mall areas, then I remembered, that most of Orlando is country-side, altho they want to think otherwise... But still, even in the country side you have cars on the highway (because we were on a main line), it was deserted, dark, and gloomy, kinda creepy, kinda scary... I may have a picture, let me see. Yes, found the picture... ... ... ... ... I was so surprised, and here I said something like: "In Puerto Rico you will always cars coming and going, and something is always open..."

On the picture:
1. The yellow line of the road lighted dimly by the car in the dark.
2. This light is mysterious, what the hell could it be? Probably some ghost.
3. The edge of the trees like teeth, engulfing the cloudy sky.
4. This is not an UFO, just some photographic shit.

So, after a while in this darkness, in the blindness almost, out of no where Jeremy says: "We're going the wrong way", and Heather: "How do you know?", Jeremy: "I know because we've been going northwest for a while, and the beach is at the northeast, and this road doesn't seem to want to turn that way." Jeremy had a digital compass on his car, I had noticed it since we left the apartments, it was a nice gadget, I would glance at it from time to time, to see the direction we were going. I had also noticed that we had been going the opposite way, but I didn't say anything because I didn't know if the roads just led that way and then turn... But, the problem was that we were on an f-ing highway, and the next exit to turn around was far far far. Eventually we did turn, and went all the way back from where we came, until we reached the right road. Nothing eventful happened. Except, that for the locals, we should have looked like an UDO (instead of UFO) (unidentified driving object) because we were alone in the road, and there were flashes coming from the inside. ET's ship on the dark, deserted road.

Finally we see some civilization, and by civilization I mean electricity! And then, at the first traffic light in miles we experienced the encounter of our lives. The light is green, Jeremy does not slow down, and I, as always, expecting the worst, stiffened in my seat. Jeremy swooshes under the light, and immediately after, a car from hell whooshes behind us from the right. It was a near miss. Or a near collision! "Did you see that?", Joel asks me, and I said "Yes". I don't remember if any of the others noticed... I'm sure they did, and I did mention it...

Anyway, so, for my great relief there was a SevenEleven, and still no beach. We saw a Ron Jon Surf Store. But no beach. We go into the Seveneleven (why is it called like that?) and ask. Remember it is like two or three in the morning, we looked suspicious. But, who doesn't look suspicious at a Seveneleven at that time? We asked for the beach, and the lady said that it was right behind the store. "But we didn't see it". "Because it is on the other side of the big bushes". "ooooh". So, we walk to the bushes. And certainly we see sand. No water. No sound of waves. Jeremy was the brave soul who went into the bushes. I stayed with the rest, in a relatively safe area telling stories about the thirty ways we could die in this place, the most scary one was if a big monstrosity came out from the bushes with a huge chainsaw.

While we waited for Jeremy to come by (which seemed like a very long time, and we started to worry some guy kidnapped him and chopped him into pieces), we found a yellow sign that said: "No camping overnight at the beach". Motherfucker! All the way down there and we couldn't go?! Jeremy eventually emerged from the darkness with a smile, saying that the beach was indeed there. But, we couldn't "camp". So we hopped in the car, and went along side the beach for a place where there was no sign, and more importantly, for a place where there was more light! More electricity!

We found a motel parking. We parked there. We walked to the beach. The sand was wet, of course. We ran. Jeremy slept. We wet our feet. We talked. We walked more. We threw sand. We got tired. We stretched the towels on the ground. We laid there. It was cold. Someone brought a sheet and we shared. We talked more. Jeremy said shut up. We did. For a while. And then, we fell quiet. And Heather fell asleep. Joel almost did. Me and Catalina didn't, but decided that we should. And we set ourselves to sleep. Three minutes later, a drop of water falls on my face. And I can't stop laughing. Heather started laughing too. "It'll pass", Jeremy said from the deeps of his sleeps. But the rain didn't stop. It was light rain, but steady, and it intensified for a while. And we decided to go sleep in the car. We gathered our things. We walked back. We crammed ourselves in the car, somehow and we slept.

It was a good trip. Really. I don't remember much of the return trip. Nothing at all, actually (did I fall asleep?).

We just spent time in the most enjoyable way. It's awesome.

Not one of us saw the sunrise, but it didn't really matter.