It would’ve been an impressive bit of foreshadowing, had I the omniscience to recognize it as such at the time, that I thought to myself as I left my house for the beach, “I might actually take an extra scenic block-circler once I near the beach, so that my phone might fully charge whilst in my vehicle, and in this way be fully prepared to spurt out tunage into mine eardrums whilst I gaze into the horizon over the shoreline at the beach…” Little did I know…
After taking a few workarounds to avoid long lights and heavy traffic near the center of downtown, I ended up headed down Cabot Street, to turn onto Middle and thereby hit up Miller, and henceforth to the beach! But I noted some construction on Highland, and thought to myself—huh. I think I heard that the Singing Bridge (or Humming Bridge, as I call it) was closed. Not gonna catch ME off guard with a closed bridge—nay, I say! I shall outsmart the rest of the rubes and go around Route 1 to Elwyn!
Hied I thee hence.
The sight of construction coming up on Route 1 didn’t phase me one bit, as I could plainly see that it was on the other side of the road, and I was too crafty to get caught in such traps. When I first hit the standstill, I yet wasn’t dismayed. An accident, probably. Kids these days and their mobile texting and social media and lap-glancing while driving—YOU’RE NOT FOOLING ANYONE, KID! EYES FRONT!—are always getting into fender benders. I turned up my JT feel-good beach-driving tunes and patiently awaited the impending unstoppage of traffic flow. That was, oh, I’d say, nigh around 11:09am, when I first came to a full stop near Operation Blessing. ‘Round about 11:58am, I finally passed the paving project which was causing the jam and overshot Elwyn, which would have been a dangerous gamble of a turn, suspended betwixt paving equipment and oncoming traffic, and turned instead onto Wilson Road, which, since my grandmother was born there (or right around there somewhere… I think it was Wilson Road specifically), I knew that it provided access, via Grant, back to Elwyn. Good thing I was in One-Day Vacation mode, or 50 minutes to go less than a mile would have been a pretty big bummer. Especially when, on my return trip, I went over the (very open) Singing(Humming) Bridge to Miller in a commute of about 10 minutes from beachfront to home driveway.
But of course, as you may have guessed, when I arrived at the beach, my phone was indeed fully charged.
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| It was a truly glorious day at the beach—rereading a childhood favorite (Emily of New Moon), snacking on spam musubi, with the perfect mix of sunshine, light breeze, and the call of children excitedly finding horseshoe crabs and shrimp. |
