This past weekend, Amy and I took the kids down to Myrtle Beach. This was one of those things that, as a father, I've been looking forward to for the entirety of my sons' lives — their first time seeing the ocean.
We had a fantastic time, despite the weather being a little cold. (We had no greater expectations — it's the "off-peak" season for a reason, after all.) Shopping for hotels online is never fun. You see those photos showing the sparkling clean rooms and well-tanned über-family in Cleaveresque bliss, but you know those pictures were snapped ten years ago before the place begin to rot and crumble in the sea air. Stil, we placed our bets on the Avista Resort, and were thoroughly pleased with the place.
Oddly, though, upon reflecting back on my boys' reactions to the beach, I find that it doesn't really match what I'd expected. See, you say "beach", and Amy and I tend to think about water as far as the eye can see, touched only by the sky and offering no reason whatsoever to believe that there's anything but more water beyond what's visible. And as a bonus, it's bordered on the near side by beautiful, white, super-fine-grained sand.
But not to my boys. To them, the beach is a most enormous and wonderful sandbox they've ever played in. And it happens to have some (cold) water on one side, too.
