We were incredibly prepared. All our bags were packed and the camper was ready to go. I'd even washed the Blazer and filled the tank the night before. It was an unprecedented display of organization. And, of course, the gods laughed in our faces for being such geeks about it all.

I had the camper hooked to the hitch before 8AM, and we were ready to pull away on our much-anticipated beach journey. We just needed to have one more pee for the road, check to make sure the brake lights were working on the camper, and hit the road.

The pees went OK (for the record), but the goddamn lights wouldn't work. The hell, man? I unplugged it, wiggled it around, scraped the plug on the pavement, etc., and it just wouldn't work. Then Toney noticed that the brake lights weren't even working on the Blazer! Shit. Wonder how long that's been going on?!

I unlatched everything and hauled ass to the garage we trust, and the guy told me it would be 45 minutes before he could even look at it. I was frantic, running my hands through my hair like a speed freak, and told him we were trying to leave town. He said he'd try to get to it sooner, but it would probably be about 45 minutes. I told him to hold my spot, and I'd be right back.

I drove to another garage that we have no history with, and the mechanic looked at it right away. He checked the fuses and they were all fine. Same with the bulbs. What in the pan-fried hell?! He said it was probably a wiring problem, and he doesn't work on wiring. I was practically bouncing off the ceiling, seeing our vacation go up in smoke before my own bugged-out eyes. I thanked him and fishtailed off his parking lot, like Ol' Scrote chasing a whore-killer.

The first garage told me the same thing as the second garage. Must be the wiring, they said, and we don't work on "worrin'." Fuck! He apologized and told me my only hope was Vito Mozzarella (or whatever). He's the only guy in town that can fix that kind of thing, he told me. Vito Mozzarella? Is that a person?? He gave me all the details, and I went searching for this mythical worrin' expert.

I told him what was going on. I explained that the big brake light at the top was working, but the two down below are deader than Kelsey's nuts. He grunted, rubbed his chin, and opened a book that must've had 10,000 pages, each containing confusing diagrams and schematics. After briefly consulting this giant book that undoubtedly is exempt from Amazon's free shipping offer, he told me he thought he knew the root of my problem. The multi-function switch. Then he added that if he was correct, "it wouldn't be pretty."

I couldn't believe it. It was all crumbling around me. And we'd done so much prep work in advance, to insure that there wouldn't be any surprises. We had reservations, goddammit.

I sat in Vito's waiting room and listened to him tell an owner of a Mercedes SUV that he'd leave her key on top of the front driver's side tire, if she couldn't get back before he closed. (She'd apparently paid up-front.) The lack of discretion while discussing this scheme shocked me. I wondered what would happen to me if I returned and stole that shit? I wouldn't mind running a Benz into a lake or setting it afire or something, especially under the circumstances. But I quickly decided that grand larceny isn't really my style, and abandoned the idea.

Of course, it was the switch. A multi-function switch, whatever that is. If it doesn't exist, if Vito made it all up, please don't tell me about it; I don't want to know. He could've told me I needed a new Tayback Nozzle, and I would've said, "how much?" This little vacation detour cost us $350.99 -- and most of Friday. He said he needed to break down the steering column(!?), and it takes time. I'm not a big fan of the breaking down of steering columns, even under the best of circumstances.

We considered driving as far as we could make it and just winging it, but finally threw in the towel. We'd just try it again tomorrow; screw it.

We went to Don Pablo's instead, and had burritos the size of footballs and large amounts of beer from ludicrously oversized glasses. I felt like someone had beaten me about the head with a length of lumber. Toney said that with 350 bucks we could've bought a new computer, or a TiVo. But what did we get? Taillights. That just about sums it up.

But the alcohol helped.

Day Two/Saturday All Aboard The Yogi Train

We were planning to stop near Richmond and camp for one night, then finish the excursion to Myrtle Beach the next day. That was the original schedule. But we were sick about losing a day at the beach, and decided we'd drive farther than Richmond, so we could get to the beach early in the day on Sunday. Toney picked a campground out of the book called Jellystone Park, in Virginia, near the North Carolina border. It was about seventy miles more ambitious than the original plan.

The drive was fairly uneventful, but really long. I'm no expert at hauling trailers, so that kept me running with low-grade stress the entire time. Somewhere just past Wilkes-Barre the camper starting bouncing behind us, and I couldn't get it to stop. It was something about the surface of the road that made it want to hop up and down. Freaky. I had to concentrate in order not to shit my pants.

At a rest area in Maryland somebody was puking in one of the stalls, theatrically and with great volume. I knew how he felt.

Along the way we ate our traditional travel snacks: gourmet jelly beans. Toney bought something like a ten-pound sack, from Sam's, and we munched on those things while rolling southward. At this point they're as required on a long car trip as a stack of clean underwear.

Jellystone wasn't too bad. We made a vow that we'd never stay at a place that received less than four stars from Woodall's, and this one earned four. It seemed fairly family-oriented, I didn't get the feeling we were amongst people with trailers full of human heads or anything.

The girl at the front desk (and I do mean girl -- she looked like she was fourteen) had a thick southern accent, and that kinda surprised me. How far had we driven?? She put us off by ourselves, on a wooded site, and I liked that at first. But once it started getting dark I realized that the only thing protecting us against Bigfoot was a thin sheet of canvas. Holy crap.

We set up our camp and built a fire, and it was nice. We got into the Yuenglings in our cooler and started cooking dinner, when Yogi Bear paid a visit. It was somebody in a full-blown Disney-grade Yogi suit, going from site to site. He acted like he was going to drag away our cooler, eat our food, etc. It was kind of amusing for the first thirty seconds or so, but after about five minutes of that crap I wanted to kick Yogi in the crotch. I practically had to remove him physically from our campsite. Sweet Maria. I have a low threshold for stupid bullshit.

While we were eating our hotdog dinner the ground started shaking and there was a godawful wail, like something from the depths of hell. A train, possibly headed straight for our picnic table! It went past blaring its horn and click-clacking, and moving at a high rate of speed -- literally feet from our camper. And other trains followed, all through the night, one after another. The conductors, understandably, were getting a big kick out of unleashing as much noise as possible while passing the campground, and we didn't sleep much.

Woodall's didn't mention any of that in their review. They talked about the game room, but not the locomotives that speed past your pillow in the dark. It was a long night, there amongst the theme-park animals and ticks.

Day Three/Sunday Camper Envy

I could still walk. I couldn't believe it. I was sure I'd wake up, after spending our first night in the new camper, bent and gnarled and jerking like a palsy victim. But it wasn't too bad. In fact, it was pretty good. After downing a few cups of coffee sunk deep in a folding Coleman chair, I reluctantly started my death-walk towards the bathhouse. I wanted a shower before we hit the road again, and a sit-down wouldn't be unwelcome either. Of course, I knew better than to set my goals too high.

Indeed, nothing of consequence came of the visit to the toilet stall. I thought it was going to work out, things were heading in that direction, then I heard the screen door screech open and it all sealed off like a Navy sub. But one of the first steps of recovery is a desire and willingness to get past your problem, and I had high hopes for the future.

I showered inside three painted walls of cinder blocks, and it was OK. Everything looked clean enough. But the little dressing area was out in the open floor, and there was no way I was going to put my shit on display in the middle of that stage. I knew a group of 12-year olds would come busting through the door as soon as I stepped out there, and I could imagine their howling, hurtful laughter. So I dragged the bench, and my clothes, all the way over to the door of the shower, and decided I'd get dressed inside the stall itself.

When I finally emerged from my cell of concern there was a large man standing across the room waiting to use the other shower, but I'd blocked him with my discretion network. He wasn't happy, and was big and shirtless and muscular. He looked like Mr. Clean's hard-living and pissed-off brother. I put the bench back and muttered a feeble, "How ya doin'?" He glared and answered, "I'm doin."

Please don't hurt me, scary military man.

As I made my way for the door, my K-Mart flip-flops began whistling and sighing, and that didn't help a thing. Besides being less than manly, I was certain that I was about to find myself plunged into a Larry David situation, and Mr. Clean would lift me off the ground by the neck, and scream, "Did you just whistle at me, faggot?!" I felt lucky to get out of there alive.

We had all sorts of trouble getting the camper ready for the road. We couldn't get it to collapse down far enough to lock. I wondered if we'd left Andy inside? But we finally got it all hitched up, after about forty minutes of cursing and cranking and tucking canvas. It was a pretty irritating morning. I was sweaty and pissed by 9AM.

We arrived in Myrtle Beach mid-afternoon. My parents greeted us at the office of the campground. They have a permanent place there, and we'd called and told them we were near. We're not hugging people, so we just kinda said hi to each other, and smiled.

I went inside the office with Toney, to make sure we were getting HBO. I didn't want there to be any bullshit on that front. I had to see The Sopranos and Deadwood. But it was not to be. They had full hook-ups, including cable TV, but no HBO. Fifty or sixty channels, but not the good one. And you couldn't upgrade either; I was willing to throw a little money around, like Sinatra, but it wasn't possible. Grrrr... Our biggest setback yet.

My father looked at me with mild disgust as I complained about the lack of premium cable channels, while we made our way deeper into the massive Lakewood Camping Resort. We had a prized oceanfront site, reserved since the late 1980's, so we drove and drove through canyons of massive tour bus travel trailers. Good God. What do all these people do for a living? I make OK money, but I can't afford a Shania Twain rig. It's like the Beverly Hills of campgrounds there. And here I was dragging around a ten year old pop-up. I didn't want to make eye-contact with anyone.

My Dad helped us set up our camp, and it was literally feet from the ocean. There were sand dunes blocking our view of the water, but you could hear the waves crashing and that was exciting.

We had dinner at my parent's place, and I decided I'd sneak away and try to use their bathroom. It's one of those airplane toilets, but it was private and I thought that might make the difference. But nothing doing. It was like a phone booth with the top half cut off, and a roof attached. I could barely fit in there, and nearly ripped down a towel rack with one of my ass cheeks. It was ridiculous to think I'd have any success in such a setting. Anyway, don't those things suck peoples' innards out, through their asses?

After dinner Toney and I tooled around on my parent's golf cart for an hour or so, then returned to our campsite. We opened our first beers of the evening, and settled in for a long evening of people watching. And we were in the perfect spot for such an activity, too. The main thoroughfare through the campground went right past our place, and the joint was crawling with teenagers on spring break.

Golf cart after golf cart of flirting beautiful people went past, all night long. There didn't seem to be an ugly one in the bunch, and most of the girls were wearing next to nothing. Pass the beer nuts!

We did see an occasional cart of geeks go past, but they compensated by incorporating props into their presentation. One guy had an acoustic guitar and crooned something unrecognizable. Another had a bullhorn. These were the Carrot Tops of the campground teen peacocking set.

As soon as it got dark people began shooting off fireworks on the beach, and they were almost as good as Scranton's Fourth of July celebration. Seriously. They're legal in South Carolina, and apparently it's a tradition for people to put on "shows" every night, over the ocean. They were just civilians, but they had elaborate launching stands equipped with metal pipes and everything. Brightly colored explosions lit up the sky all evening, all up and down the coast. Cool as hell.

Andy surprised us by just lying at our feet, and taking it all in. At home he goes ass-over-tits if a neighbor turns on their porch light, but with all that craziness going on before us, he laid still -- a disciplined, majestic beast.

After four or five Yuenglings I made my way to the bathhouse and had a moving experience in the corner stall. That was it! The secret was revealed. Public shitting, like dating, is much easier if you're slightly drunk. How could I have not known?!

This is going to be a great vacation, we thought. But, predictably, things quickly went to hell from there.

Day Four/Monday Camp Slop

It started raining sometime in the night, and when we emerged from our canvas cocoon in the morning we saw that we were situated right in the middle of a goddamn sloppy mess. Standing water, sand, mud, more sand, more mud... It was sick. Everything we touched left a coating of moist filth on our skin. By the time I emptied the pools of water from the seats of our four chairs out front, I had sand inside my underwear. I could feel it in there, sanding things.

The sky was the color of old nickels and the weather man on TV said we should just write today off. But it would be better tomorrow, he promised. Within fifteen minutes of opening the door of our camper, the inside of our little sanctuary was smeared with mud and crap, and our bed had sand in it for the rest of our stay. It looked like everything was dirty, and would never be clean again.

What's going on here?! This didn't happen in our daydreams about this trip.

I called my parents and we decided to go to Broadway at the Beach, a big glorified tourist mall, laden with touristy stores and restaurants. Whatever. Just get me away from Camp Slop. It's too demoralizing to look at.

We took showers, for what good it did. You needed an astronaut suit to keep the sand off of you. Toney said a Southern-fried woman at the bathhouse told a little girl, "Now sweetie, you stand right here while Mama goes tee-tee." And Toney also asked me, while we walked to my parent's place, to stay away from my mother's baked beans today. Apparently I'd made the tent camper a tad unpleasant in my sleep.

Broadway at the Beach was extremely crowded, and there were Los Angeles-grade traffic jams all around it. No fun. We walked around and took it all in, but the weather was taking the wind out of our sails. Perhaps we weren't cut out for camping, after all? A frickin' Hyatt, with oak lobby bar, seemed pretty appealing at this point.

That night we went to Medieval Times, a money-sucking operation of the highest order. It's a dinner theater type of place, with knights joisting and shit on horseback during your main course. It cost a fortune to get in, and every little thing you did once inside cost extra. I didn't take a leak there, but there would've undoubtedly been a surcharge.

They led us, cattle-call style, into a large holding area with gift shops on two walls, and bars on the other two. Some guy in a Lord of the Rings outfit was standing on a balcony hollering into a microphone. Just hollering, incessantly. It was so crowded in there people were touching me on all four sides. And I don't like that.

A man tried to sell us a time-share while were in this holding pen, I shit you not. Who runs this place, Mr. Haney?

As we entered they told us we'd be rooting for the blue knight, and gave us blue paper crowns. I wore my new crown to the nearest wall containing a bar, and forked over $5.75 each for two beers.

Eventually they let us into the main auditorium and all the people with blue crowns had to sit together in the blue section. My Dad asked a woman in period costume where we could find Table 142, and she pointed and said, "Right up there, my lord." Dad had a puzzled look on his face and said, "Up there with the Lord?!" He was completely confused and I was laughing so hard I nearly lost my novelty headgear.

The "show" was interesting enough, but way too long. People doing tricks on horseback under the pretense of some loosely plotted story... It wasn't boring or anything, but I wasn't exactly into it either.

The best part, by far, was the falconer. He let loose a huge bird and it flew round and round the auditorium, just above our heads. Pretty cool, but I guarded my food and Toney's purse.

There was no silverware -- it hadn't been invented in the eleventh century, they said, although Diet Coke had, apparently -- so we had to eat with our hands. They gave us chicken, a sparerib, garlic bread, half a potato that tasted like what I imagine doorstops taste like, and some other stuff I can't now remember. When the blue knight aced a competition involving spears and rings, I waved a chicken leg above my head and screamed my approval, and a big piece of skin flung off and landed in my hair.

Toney went to bed soon after our return to Camp Slop. I filled a giant plastic cup with beer and walked over to the beach, and watched them shoot off fireworks for an hour or so.

I had confidence that tomorrow would be a better day.

Day Five/Tuesday My Eyes! My Eyes!!

The weatherman said almost exactly what he'd said the day before. You can write today off, but tomorrow will be better. The prick. It continued to rain and Camp Slop was practically an open pit with a camper floating in it at this point.

I'd woken at 4AM with the urge to urinate like one of those Medieval Times stallions, and had to hoof it in the dark to the bathhouse. Then I couldn't get back to sleep for a long time, and was paralyzed by laziness in the morning. I couldn't move, I just sat there drinking coffee with my mouth hanging open, as rain pounded the roof. Good god, what had we gotten ourselves into??

Toney and I decided to go off by ourselves, and visit the downtown area of Myrtle Beach. It's full of funky shops and a hotbed of strangeness and tourist traps.

I watched a teenage hardbody get a henna tattoo right above her ass crack, as her mother looked on. I thought the guy applying the tattoo didn't really need to rub his hands all over her like that, but what do I know about it? A chainsaw-wielding man in a hockey mask ran out of a haunted house attraction, onto the sidewalk, screaming and waving his arms around.

I bought an iron-on patch from the Gay Dolphin giftshop (a Myrtle Beach institution for half a century), that had undoubtedly been on their shelves since 1974 or so. It says, "I can't believe I ate the whole thing!" I also purchased a bumper sticker from them that reads, "Beer: Helping white people learn to dance since 1837." I strongly considered getting a temporary tattoo of the Pillsbury Doughboy on my forearm, but didn't like the looks of the guy who owned the shop. He had a U-bolt through his nose, and was wearing cologne.

We had a fancy lunch at Chick-fil-A, and noticed that the sun was actually out. But it was cold as a mofo, and really windy.

We returned to Camp Slop and when I stepped out of the truck it felt like somebody walked up to me and hurled a handful of sand directly into my face. My eyes! My eyes!! My contacts felt like discs of Velcro, and tears were streaming down my face. I ran for the camper, which was rocking in the wind, and by the time I got it unlocked I could taste sand.

I removed my lenses and put on my glasses, and we decided we needed to take advantage of the sun being out. We may never see it again, we knew. We took my parent's golf cart and decided on a whim to rent a paddle boat at the lake. Jesus J. McChrist, I had no idea it was going to be so much work. It looks so effortless from the shore. I was sweating and huffing and miserable within minutes. At one point we got hung up on the edge of the lake, and couldn't go one way or the other. I was sure they would have to send out a rescue mission, possibly by aircraft, but we finally broke free. No fun.

On our way back Toney told me to quit my bitching, and as we busted through a herd of teens headed for the indoor pool, I hollered, "Step aside! Buggy of Bitterness coming through!!"

That night we cranked up the heat and sat in the little booth of our camper, drinking beer and hoping the trailer wouldn't fucking flip over. It was like a visit to the world's worst Denny's. All night long I tried to blow the sand out of my mouth, and around 9PM I just went to bed, in our sandy sheets, and prayed that when it went over, neither of us would take a length of aluminum through the neck.

I had confidence that tomorrow would be a better day.

Day Six/Wednesday Earth, wind, and fire

Sometime around midnight, in a half-awake stupor, I became convinced that our camper was going over Niagara Falls. What the?! The wind was incredibly strong and was beating hell out of our canvas pod. Everything was shaking and shuddering and we could occasionally feel a gust go up underneath the trailer, and literally lift it off the ground. I seriously thought the whole deal was about to fly apart, and we'd be left sitting on a thin mattress in the middle of a vacant lot. It's funny now, but it wasn't funny then. It was scary.

It was like the security-camera footage they show on TV, after a major earthquake. Violent shaking, shit falling in the floor, the sound of metal wrenching. If we made it through the night I was convinced we'd never be able to crank the thing back down to its compact state again. I was sure the vitals were now bent and ruined. We'd probably have to abandon it all somewhere in South Carolina, in the dead of night.

We quickly realized that it's probably not such a hot idea to camp in a pop-up, right up against the ocean. It would be much smarter to be three or four sites back, protected by a high wall of Clay Aiken rigs. You live and learn...

That day we went to Ripley's Aquarium, which is really fun. We visited there once before, several years ago, and were looking forward to going again. It's still awesome. I'm not usually a fan of such things, but this place is mind-blowing. It's like riding an electric sidewalk across the floor of the ocean; you're surrounded all around by huge sharks and stingrays and thousands of colorful fish. Really cool.

Afterwards we walked around the shopping center next door, and everybody stopped for ice cream at Ben & Jerry's. I don't like those guys, so I didn't get anything; radical high-horse hippies and dairy desserts don't mix in my world. I'm just funny that way. If there'd been an Anti-Abortion Pie Shop there, I would've avoided it as well.

It was the second day in a row I saw a teenage girl getting a henna tattoo, while her mother watched. This one was having the back of her neck decorated with a drawing of the sun. Hey, whatever. I wondered if he could do a Smoking Fish on my gut? And would it generate such a large crowd of spectators? I made a mental note to pursue that later, but never did.

Since we hadn't eaten anything of consequence all day (there didn't seem to be any actual meals during the week, except dinner) I was on the cusp of passing out. I insisted we stop for burgers somewhere. Goddamn. We chose a Wendy's, and the place was packed. As we waited in line an old black man, dressed to the nines, came through the door, saw the crowd and left. I guessed he didn't want to wait, but my Dad had another theory. "If I had a hat like that, he said, "I'd want to eat uptown." The guy kills me.

It was a good day. It was kinda cold outside, but the sun was out and it wasn't raining. My Dad and I went fishing in the afternoon, at a stocked lake inside the campground. I didn't catch a thing, except a mosquito bite on my leg, but it was fun anyway. And Toney and I took a long walk on the beach and breathed in the intoxicating aroma of a fish-fry getting underway beside one of the swimming pools. We already had plans for dinner, with my parents, but really wanted to get all up in that shit. It smelled incredible. Eight bucks per person, all you can eat. Mmmm... It had Jeff Kay written all over it.

That night we built a campfire for the first time since arriving, and set off a few fireworks on the beach. I'd bought a package of fat bottle rockets earlier that day, and we launched them from a Rolling Rock bottle plunged in the sand. They were pretty impressive, nothing like the piss-ant rockets of my youth. Good fun.

We sat huddled around the fire until bedtime, had a few beers, and did some more people-watching. Dipshit teenage boys kept riding past on golf carts, saying, "Do it! Do it!!" for whatever reason, until security made them stop, presumably for violating the annoying ordinance. And a guy walked past wearing a pair of shorts with fake ass cheeks busted out of the seat. As he went by he reached around and scratched his rubber butt, and all the people with him cracked up laughing. And we laughed too.

Now this is what we had in mind when we were thinking vacation. A nearly perfect day. Maybe camping is OK, after all? Wednesday left us wanting more.

Day Seven/Thursday Fun in the Sun, Finally

The wind stopped blowing and the temperatures crept up, so we decided we'd just spend the day in the campground, soaking up the warmth.

We'd talked about how we weren't really getting the full camping experience, because my parents were supplying most of the meals we didn't eat in restaurants. So, we fired up the griddle and Toney cooked scrambled eggs and bacon, outdoors. There's nothing like the aroma of bacon cooking outside; the moment you smell it, and know you're responsible, makes it official. That's when you're camping, son.

My dad came by and we put up the awning on our camper. It was near the end of the trip, but it was our first chance to set it up. Twenty-four hours earlier and the thing would've violently ripped from its housing, and come to rest somewhere in Georgia. It was a fairly complicated and unwieldy process, but we got it up and it made Camp Slop look kinda homey. I kept admiring it, from different angles.

We took a break and were having a little coffee, when an old man came by on a golf cart. He didn't see us sitting there, and as he sped past he made car sounds with his mouth: vroom! vroom!! He was probably seventy-five and was having the time of his life, in the beginning stages of dementia, or both. In any case, I thought it was highly amusing.

Toney and I spent a big part of the day walking on the beach, and tooling around in the golf cart. It was really relaxing and nice, just as we'd hoped. I worked hard at not focusing on the fact that it wasn't this way all week, like the last time we'd been there. I tried to make myself believe the glass was half full, and did an adequate job, I think.

We saw a guy on the beach with a metal detector and asked if he'd had any luck. My jaw dropped when he reached inside his pocket and pulled out a jumble of men's watches. What the hell, man? Did we just miss a watch-losing convention? Or did he just carry those around to impress people?

Sometime during the day I visited the bathhouse, to get rid of my vroom! vroom!! coffee and whatever else had built up, and the showers were full of springbreakers. The whole bathroom was foggy and humid, and the culprits were all talking to each other. I can't imagine such a thing, having a conversation with a friend while soaping up my crack. I know (assume) they were in separate stalls, but it still had a certain Amsterdam feel to it. And if that weren't enough, by the time I finished, the shower buddies were passing bars of soap to each other! I had to get out of there, the envelope was being pushed. I like Trading Spaces and all, but I ain't ready to swap bath soap with my friends. Yo, can I borrow your Zest, man? Wait, I still need to wash my bag... OK, here ya go.

Toney and I played a game of miniature golf (known as Putt-Putt in West Virginia) in the late afternoon, then had a Blizzard at Dairy Queen. A fat man came in with a rosy-cheeked dumplin child who resembled the robot on Lost In Space, with skin. They waddled to the counter and ordered $25 worth of ice cream snacks (I'm not exaggerating), while huffing and puffing from the effort of walking from their swaddlemobile to the food. I just looked on in awe. Something like that takes discipline.

On our way back we stopped at the fireworks store, and I bought some larger bottle rockets. I was like a drug addict, craving bigger thrills. Bigger! Better! More!! If we'd stayed another week I would've been breaking into houses, for M-80 money. I know how those things go.

We cooked dinner for my parents (guilt), then settled in for the traditional evening of beer and sarcastic remarks aimed at passersby. I told Toney that it seemed like a month ago that we went to Medieval Times, and she agreed. It was amazing. Weeks and months speed past at home, but we were in another dimension down there. That day's morning felt like last week and last week felt like the fall of 1987. It's hard to explain, really.

Day Eight/Friday Grand Strand larceny

At 2:30 in the morning Andy completely lost his shit. He started barking and snarling and turning back-flips... The hell? I dragged my outsized ass out of bed and went outside to see what was going on. Everything looked normal. I heard a bunch of hooligans hooting and hollering on the beach -- maybe that's what set him off? Stupid dog. Then I noticed that our beer cooler was gone. Somebody'd stolen our goddamn beer!

If they'd taken my car that would've been one thing, but you don't touch a man's beer supply. That cooler was packed out with Rolling Rock longnecks, Sierra Nevadas, and a South Carolina microbrew loaded with more hops than the entire nation of Germany. I was pissed.

I called security, and they said they'd send somebody out. The guy on the phone said thieves were hitting all the resorts, and were coming in from the beach. For some reason it made me feel a little better to know it wasn't just our beer that was hijacked.

As we waited on Security Cart 611, or whatever, a little fuzzy-headed fucker came slinking between the camper and the Blazer, and was clearly surprised to see us sitting there at three in the morning. We both started giving him shit. Toney said, "Come back for more?" And the kid, of course, professed his innocence. He was just cutting through, he said. I asked him if, by chance, he knew anything about coolers being stolen, and he seemed offended that we'd even suspect him of such a thing. "Get the fuck out of here," I told him. Somehow, I knew, I'd be the bad guy if I beat the living hell out of a fourteen year old boy on vacation.

The kid ran off and joined a bunch of other shitasses down the road. The place was crawling with teenage boys, in the middle of the night. It was kinda weird, and menacing.

Security came, followed by a sheriff's deputy. And when the deputy pulled up in his shiny cop car, those beer-thievin' bastads scattered in every direction, like cock roaches.

The cop came over and talked to us, and basically told us we could kiss our beer stash goodbye. He said they might find our cooler a half-mile down the beach in the morning, but the contents would be long gone. Dozens of coolers had apparently been stolen the night before, from Lakewood, Myrtle Beach Resort, and Pirateland, and they were clearly hitting tonight as well. He said he wished he could help us, but he really couldn't. Then he gave us a jaunty little salute, and left.

They stole my goddamn beer. I felt violated on some primal level. You just don't touch a man's beer. What happened to honor among thieves?

While we were waiting on security to arrive, after our visit from L'il Fuzzy, we watched another drama unfold before us. Somebody in a huge SUV pulled up to the sand dunes and went across the bridge to the beach. Within seconds teenagers came pouring back across the bridge, into the campground, and the SUV owner reappeared, practically dragging a girl by the arm.

"Get in the car!" he hollered at her.

"But Daddy, I lost my cell phone, and was just down there looking for it!"

"Shut up and get in!," he screamed, "I'm in no mood for your lies!!"

A lot of interesting stuff apparently goes on in campgrounds, in the middle of the night.

Toney and I went to lunch later that day, to a place called Liberty Brew Pub. It was good. I had a grouper sandwich, and Toney had blackened swordfish, if you can believe it. Afterwards we stopped at a massive RV dealership, to take a look at a tiny camper they had on their lot, which had intrigued us all week.

It was called The Teardrop, and it cost thirteen thousand dollars(!?). The woman admitted they hadn't sold any, but it had drawn a lot of people in off the streets. It was one of the more ridiculous things I'd seen all week, and I wasn't surprised that they weren't exactly flying off the lot. You could practically hold it in your hand. If you farted inside one of those things, every window would explode.

We stopped at Kroger and bought an 18-pack of Bud Light, to reduce our exposure to shrinkage, and returned to the campground. And every boy between the ages of twelve and sixteen pissed me off. I just knew that every single one of them had conspired to steal our beer. I was profiling like a mofo, and scowling like a mental patient. The pricks.

That evening my parents came by Camp Slop, and we were sitting around talking when we heard a gush of water erupt from beneath our camper. The hell? Before my brain could process what was happening, my Dad sprang to his feet and wriggled under there and began fusing hoses with some crude fastening tool he'd fashioned on the fly, from a gum wrapper and paperclips (or something). Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be a man, but I can't really picture it.

After it was over he made me feel better by saying I couldn't have fixed it even if I knew how, because I'm too "thick" to fit under the camper. Good ol' Dad.

Day Nine/Saturday Goodbye

I asked Toney to get me up early, to see the sunrise. It was our last day, and I'd wanted to watch the sun rise over the ocean all week, but had never made it out of bed in time. I made it this time, and it was pretty awesome. Surprisingly, there were quite a few other people down there with the same idea.

My Dad helped me break down Camp Slop, and we had a farewell breakfast at their place. It was sad, we didn't want to go. The week had started out rough, but it ended on a high note. You live and die by the weather, I guess, in those situations.

We don't hug, so I just told my parents goodbye, and left the campground for the highway. I realized that I'd been coming to Lakewood since I was five or six years old. Well, there was a twenty year gap in there when I was too snobby to set foot in such a joint, but off and on since I was five or six... It's a nice place, and we'll be back. That's what we told ourselves as we drove: we'll be back.

And that's pretty much the story of what I did on my summer vacation. We spent Saturday night at a place called AmeriCamps near Richmond, but it was fairly uneventful. The best part of that deal was the thirty-five cent ice cream cones at the general store. When we finally got home on Sunday our house felt like MC Hammer's place. It looked huge, and walls that don't move in the wind?  Luxury.

A week later, I'd have to rate our inaugural camping excursion a strong B. Plenty of room for improvement, for sure, but clearly successful. It could've very easily turned into an episode of Lucy, but it was OK. Semi-shocking. 

Here are some photos from the trip.

                                     
                 The West Virginia Surf Report!