15

What looked like the most fun to ME was a place called Soak Central. We went to a water park LAST summer but got rained out, so I figured this would make up for it. But Mom read through the brochure and said Soak Central looked "artificial" and that the whole point of this trip was to AVOID places like that.

Since nobody could agree on anything, Mom said she was making an "executive decision" and that we were going to the beach. Dad didn't complain, because I'm sure he was thinking that if we were going to the shore, he might actually get a chance to use his BOAT. I'm really not much of a beach person myself. Whenever we go to one, we bring a blanket and spread it out, then sit there for the whole day. And you can't really go anywhere, because you're worried someone will take your spot. The last time we went to the beach, Dad brought the tarp he uses to cover the boat so we'd have more room for our family and all our stuff.

But the tarp was at LEAST twice the size of our old blanket, and it took up a ton of space on the beach. Not to mention the fact that it's made of PLASTIC, so with the sun beating down, it was like sitting in a frying pan. It was ESPECIALLY embarrassing when the rest of my family went to grab lunch on the boardwalk and I had to hang back on the tarp by myself to watch our stuff.

So I wasn't real excited about going to the beach, especially since I knew Dad had his boat tarp with him. The beach was a few hours drive away, so I decided to take a nap until we got there. And believe me, with all the junk piled up in the back of the minivan, it wasn't easy. I woke up when the van slowed down. I thought we were at the beach, but we hadn't even gotten to the bridge yet. It seemed like everyone had the same idea WE did.

When we were about a quarter of a mile from the bridge, I could tell Dad was starting to get nervous. He HATES bridges, because for some reason he gets dizzy whenever he has to drive over one. The bridge to the beach is one of those kinds that's really high above the water, and I'm sure Dad wasn't looking forward to being stuck on it for the next half hour. Mom told Rodrick HE could drive. So we pulled over and everyone switched seats.

Dad took my place in the back so he wouldn't see the bridge out the front window, and I moved to the middle row. When Rodrick got in the driver's seat, he took advantage of Dad's radio rule and blasted heavy metal music. And I could tell that wasn't helping Dad's nerves. We were only going about three miles an hour. It looked like we were gonna be stuck on the bridge even longer than I expected, so I opened the bag of cheese curls Rodrick bought at the grocery store.