Honeymoon Paradise

So, twenty-six years ago, Chrissy and I were in full swing with wedding planning. Actually, it was mostly Chrissy’s mom with some input from Chrissy.  Anyway, at some point we thought, we need to plan a honeymoon.

We thought of amazing destinations where we could go. We dreamed of white sandy beaches in a tropical paradise. We would be in an adult only all-inclusive resort. You know the kind that has all the food you can eat and cabanas on the beach. The beach would have big palm trees, and there would definitely be a hammock strung between them. So, we thought Cancun would be great!

Then, we looked at the price, and thought well, that would be a nice dream vacation someday, but my full-time job as walk-off rug cleaner and part-time job as a stocker at Giant grocery store, plus running a professional photo studio on the side just didn’t cut it-- even with adding Chrissy’s almost full-time job at Giant, it just wasn’t going to be enough. This was a dream.

So, we dreamed smaller and closer to a what-we-thought-we-might-get-in-wedding- gifts kind of budget. We thought and thought, and then a friend of mine at work, Mike Linn, told me of a place he took his family for vacation. This sounded like it might work. It was on a beach by the ocean. It was an island. We would be going in August, so somewhat tropical. And check this out, it had wild horse roaming the island freely! It was about 6 hours away from home, so we would definitely be getting away.  Perfect, I thought.

Side Note: I am from the mountains of Pennsylvania. I grew up hiking, fishing and camping… you know, your all around outdoors kind of stuff. I didn’t see any issues with doing whatever I had to, to make thing work.

So I took the idea of this tropical paradise to Chrissy. I told her it wasn’t Cancun, but it was like an adventure island paradise. The only thing was that there were no hotels. Thinking quickly, I said “It will be like our own little cabana on the beach, but it will just look more like a small dome tent.”

Side Note: I really don’t think I said that, but I wish I had-- that would have been good!

So I told her about us camping on the beach, having a campfire with wild horses all around. I said, “It will be great, we’ll be able to go to sleep listening to the crashing waves of the ocean. I then told her the best part-- it was a national park, so it was inexpensive! So cheap that we might be able to spend one night on the way back home in a hotel! I really think the horses got her, because she said yes!

How cool was this going to be! Honeymooning on the beach! I was so excited.

Our big day came,  and our first night being newlyweds we spent locally. Our wedding party went together and got us a room at a local fancy hotel. I think it was the new Sheriton Hotel in downtown Williamsport. Our plans were to open our wedding gifts the next day, and then head out on our adventure. I had the Subaru all packed and ready to go, we were off!

We had the tunes cranked, the sun in our faces, and the wind blowing through our hair, life was good! We pulled in to the park late that afternoon. We hiked our gear over a sand dune and picked a spot where we could see and hear the ocean, and that’s where we pitched our cozy bungalow for two. I remember it being hot! Not just a little warm, but humid, hot. The kind of hot that made you so sticky and nasty that you just didn’t want anyone to touch you. That is great for a honeymoon. Not really.

Sometime after we decided to go here, my parents reminded me that I had been here before when I was little. They also said something about watching out for the state bird, it was a real blood sucker? Yup-- mosquitos! So, I being full of ingenuity, thought we just need a screen tent to go over our dome tent. That would keep the bugs at bay.

I also may have forgotten to mention that the park had showers, but no hot water, only cold. Not bad when you’re hot and toasty, but in the cooler morning air, it was a bit of a shock. Another thing that we didn’t anticipate was all the sand. That sounds really stupid, beach, sand… that’s what a beach is, it’s sand. Duh! So, we spent our honeymoon nights in our hot tent with sweaty bodies that were covered with sand that we just couldn’t seem to get off, and we tried to not touch each other. Because of the heat and dryness we couldn’t have a fire either. So much for a romantic paradise on this honeymoon.

As the days went by, we did create great memories together and had fun exploring the island by day and swimming in the ocean. We even went to the Ocean City Boardwalk. This is where Chrissy begged me to get one of those old fashion type pictures done. I had always dreamed of going there and getting t-shirts that said “I’m hers” and “He’s mine”. I know I’m corny that way, but instead of t-shirts, we got this dorky photo of us looking like we got married in the civil war era. If you look close at the photo you can see the sweat rolling down our faces. But we had fun doing it, and that’s all that matters.

Wednesday, we had a visit from a park ranger. He wanted to let us know that there was a chance of a storm that night, and we should be careful. I thought, oh I have camped in bad weather before, no big del. I remember laying in my family’s old canvas tent listening to the thunder and watching the lightning illuminate the top of the tent. Mom and Dad would say, stay away from the sides of the tent, because if you touch them, it will leak. Ah, those were the days. Storms-- no problem.

I reassured Chrissy that it would be fine, and we would be perfectly safe. Well, that night the temperature dropped, and it was cold. As we were brushing off as much sand as we could before getting into the tent, the unthinkable happened. I helped Chrissy into the tent and swung my arm back and I felt something leave my hand. That’s right-- it was my wedding band. It was like slow motion, I stood there saying, “nooooo!” Then I thought, don’t move. Just get a light, and you will find it. My fingers had shrunk because of the cold weather, and the ring was just loose enough to fly off. Chrissy asked “What’s wrong?” I said, “I lost my ring, it flew off my finger.”

At that moment I remembered thinking about all the times my mom told me not to were rings in the ocean because she had lost a diamond ring in the ocean one time. Then I was brought back to reality by the sound of our little honeymoon bungalow being zipped up. Then I heard my wife say, “You’re not coming in here until you find that ring!”

I frantically looked through the sand for my ring. Nothing. I said, “Look I’m cold, I’ll find it in the morning.” Chrissy said, “No, you will find that ring now!” I think there was some exchange between us about how much our Wes Freedmen wedding rings cost us, and about how we didn’t have that kind of money to get another one. I think my ring was like $60. So, I continued to look, shivering all the while, knowing that even if I found the ring, she was not going to cuddle with me to get me warm. Honestly, I don’t blame her at all. We had sand everywhere, and it just wouldn’t leave.

Finally, I shined the light down, and saw a glimmer of gold. I reached down, and sure enough, it was my ring. I snatched it up, and pumped my arms in the air victoriously while shouting, “I got it, now let me in!”

The storms never came that night, but the next morning we had anther visit from Ranger Rick. He told us that we would have to cut our stay short because the storms that were coming in were now upgraded to a tropical storm. I guess there was a hurricane somewhere out on the ocean, and now it was coming towards our tropical paradise.

So, we packed our tents and gear back into the Subaru and headed back north. We decided to stop in Baltimore for the rest of our time. We visited Inner Harbor and a few other places, but the best part was the Red Roof Inn. We got hot showers and washed all (and I mean ALL) the sand off. We even had a nice bed to sleep in.

It was a good thing that we did pack it in and leave. The island was hit with a strong tropical storm that I’m sure our bungalow would not have survived.

We have always lived the adventure. We don’t look for it, but it always seems to find us. I try to never complain that life is boring. If I did, who knows what stories would come from that.

Shorts on the Ground

Over the past few weeks I have been feeling a bit nostalgic, so like any dad who feels like reliving the past, I went out to my garage. Now, why would I go to the garage you may ask. Great question! I went to the garage because, if you know me for any period of time, you will know that, no matter where I live, I have a magic garage.

Side Note: I have a reputation for keeping things. I’m not a hoarder, but I could be. My garage holds some of the most amazing treasures. I had a friend that used to say “Whatever you need just ask Butch to see if he has it in his garage.” Yes, sometimes I did have things that people needed or we needed for ministry. I didn’t get the title of Kid Ministry MacGyver for nothing. That, my friends is another story itself, for another time.

So, I went to my garage and found a box of old video tapes that held our family history. Looking though these tapes made me realize that we could have had a video on America’s Funniest Videos every week for an entire year. It also jogged my memory of our first video camera and the time we took it on vacation.

Our oldest son, Ben, was just turning two. This would have been our first real family vacation. So, Chrissy and I decided to go back to the place where we spent our honeymoon, Assateague Island, in Maryland, close to Ocean City. Since we enjoyed the area so much, we wanted to go back to the place where we created some very special memories camping on the beach.

Side Note: Honeymooning on the beach sounds super romantic, and we thought so too, when we planned it. Let’s just say, sand plus newlyweds in a small pup tent on a beach teeming with wild horses while a hurricane heads inland creates a situation that could test even the strongest of marriages. I almost forgot about the pesky state bird, otherwise known as the mosquito

Back to the vacation. We made plans to vist Assateague Island for a day while camping on the mainland at a nice wooded campground in Ocean City, that sprayed for mosquitoes.

Packing for our big day at the beach, I kept in mind that this was our two-year-old son’s first time to the ocean. All the things that my mom had warned me about ran through my head. “Watch out for the undertow, when you were a baby you got rolled so bad that you had sand for days coming out of you.” And Chrissy’s Nanny, “Don’t forget to put a lot of sun screen on.” With all these voices in my head, I could hardly hear myself think. The biggest thing in my mind was making sure we had the cameras, the regular one and the video camera too.

On this special day, I thought to myself (louder than all the other voices), “I want my boy to have a great time at the beach. He needs a boogie board! Yeah, he’ll love a boogie board!” I really don’t know why I thought that. Still, we stopped on the way to the beach at a small store to buy the cheapest styrofoam boogie board I could find because things were tight on this vacation. Once I had boogie board loaded in the car, we were set to go. Whoo-hoo off to the beach! On the way into the beach area, we saw the wild horses, this was a plus. They just roam anywhere and everywhere they please; it’s very cool! We even have a picture of one sticking its head in our car window!

Finally, at the beach, we grabbed all our stuff and headed down to the water to pick our spot for the day. It was great, the sun was shining, temperature was perfect with a nice cool breeze blowing. As the wind blew off the waves, it picked up salt that you could taste from the mist of the crashing waves, it was a gorgeous July day. The best part was that the beach was not very crowded.

We did all the things you would imagine parents doing with their child at the seashore for the first time. Ben loved playing in the lapping waves of the ocean. Chrissy took pictures and occasionally, we would use the camcorder to capture some priceless moments for our little family.

After a while, I took the boogie board down to the water for Ben to ride. I placed him on it, sitting down. I don’t know what I expected to happen, but here’s what did happen. A wave came in and knocked him right off. Epic dad fail on this one, I thought. So, I marched my sand-covered, squalling son up to his mother, so she could comfort him. After all, I had just let him get tossed around by the ocean tide.  

                              

So then, me being me, I decided to show my son that boogie boards could be fun. I said, “Ben, watch Daddy do it!” I grabbed the boogie board, and ran down to the water. I waded out into deeper water and waited for just the right wave to roll in. I looked out to see if Ben is watching, and I saw Chrissy getting the camcorder ready.

And then it was now or never; the water sucked back and I knew it was going to be a big one. I readied the board and jumped as high as my short legs would take me and landed on the crest of the wave! I remember thinking, “This is awesome! I’m riding a wave! Yes!”

I jumped off the board just before the wave crashed down onto the sandy beach. I ran up to Chrissy and Ben, out of breath, and exclaimed “I did it!  Did you see that! I was great! Yeah baby!”

Chrissy said, “Sorry, I didn’t get it you’ll have to go do it again.” I now believe she secretly knew what would happen next and just wanted to egg me on to make sure it happened. I was, oh, too willing. I was like a dog playing fetch with his favorite ball. You know right before the dog’s master tosses the ball, he’s so excited to get the ball. Yup, that was me.

So Chrissy readied the camera, ben sat playing at her feet. I galloped down to the edge of the ocean with the boogie board over my head like I was some champion surfer ready to rip some gnarly swells. I made my way through the crashing waves out quite a bit further than before. I positioned myself, and waited for the perfect wave.

I could see Chrissy recording as I waited for my dream wave. I waved to her with a thumb up. I was ready for this epic moment. Just then the water powerfully pulled quickly past my legs sucking my feet into the sand. I looked over my shoulder this was a huge wave! It was quickly rolling towards me, building momentum. Higher and higher it went.

I bent at my knees and with all I had jumped into the air at just the right moment to be caught on the top of the wave. Cowabunga dude! I was riding on top of this wave! The rush of water around me was exhilarating, the adrenaline was pumping though my body. It was like the rush you get when riding a smooth roller coaster, but a 100 times better. The wave was accelerating, and with every foot it got closer to its crashing destination.

Then, just before I could jump off the boogie board, the wave took me by surprise curling under me only to drop me, fast and hard head-first onto the shore. I hit the sand with an audible crunch. I was involuntarily rolling through the water, gasping for air. I could feel my heart pounding. I clawed at the shifting sand to get my balance and pull myself up out of the water. I shook off the water from my head and wiped the salt from my eyes. I could feel sand in places you never want to feel sand.

What seemed like an eternity only took seconds. I crawled to my knees. Still being pummeled by aftershock waves. The tide rolled out enough for me to get to my feet and somewhat get my bearings.

I desperately looked for my wife on the beach. I thought to myself well, that was definitely spectacular! Though blurry eyes, I saw Chrissy laughing hysterically all the while frantically tring to get the camera lined up with where I was now standing. I waved to her laughing all the while trying to get some forward motion going.

There are those times in life when things happen, and you know you just came through something that could have had disastrous results, only to realize the worst had not hit yet.

That is when I felt it. The cool breeze and water lapping bare skin in a place, well, a place that should have been covered. I looked down and terror struck me to the core only to realize that my swim trunks were gone. I quickly threw myself down into the shallow water. Fumbling around like a fish out of water. I was flopping around as I tried to grab my shorts that had luckily got hung up on one of my feet.

I quickly maneuvered my other leg into my swim shorts and pulled them up, filling them with even more sand in the process. I embarrassingly looked around to see who else had caught an eye full of me in all my God-given glory. To my surprise, I didn’t see anyone running in horror or pointing and laughing, well, no one  except Chrissy.

Side Note: Thinking back to this experience, all I can think of is the You Tube song, “Pants on the ground, Pants on the ground, look’n like a fool with your pants on the ground!” That was me. I was a naked fool!

My attention then turned to retrieving my white Styrofoam boogie board. After paying good money for it, I wasn’t going to lose this thing. Right at that moment, I felt something smack me in the back of my legs. I turned to see what it was-- it was a piece of Styrofoam. I bent over and grabbed it for a closer examination. It looked like a piece of someone’s boogie board, I wondered who broke their boogie board.  As I look down the beach, I saw 2 more white pieces being pushed up on the beach and it sadly occurred to me that it was my boogie board.

I gathered my wits, picked up what was left of my pride, and retrieved the rest of what was left of the board. I than sheepishly slogged up to Chrissy and Ben. Chrissy was reviewing her newly captured footage of my major wipeout. She looked up at me, snickering all the while and said “This is going to get us 10,000 dollars!” Then she disappointedly said, “Oh no! I missed you losing your shorts! I guess I just couldn’t find you in the camera. Darn, that would have been awesome,” she said. We both laughed, and I sat down to nurse my wounds.

Not only did I lose my shorts, demolish a boogie board and hurt some of my pride, I also had bright red welts across my chest and under my chin where the board had hit me when it exploded under the impact of the wave. I was a washed-up man.

Life has always been an adventure with the Hunter Clan-- even at the very beginning!

The Challenge!

So one day I got to thinking…

Side Note:  Thinking for me is always a dangerous thing because usually this is followed by some sort of hair-brained, crazy idea that either gets me into trouble, or I end up doing something that is larger than life. Go big or go home. Right?

Anyway as I said, I was thinking that I needed an outlet where I could be creative and express myself. I also wanted to get some of the fun, crazy stories my family has experienced on this adventure we call the Life of a Hunter.

Side Note: When I told Chrissy (my amazing, smart, beautiful wife) my idea, She encouragingly said, I don’t think we have a lot of entertaining stories from our lives; of course I had to emphatically disagree and press on.

The last thing I needed was to have some accountability.

I decided to challenge myself to a year of stories. So I made my mind up, I would come up with 52 stories over the next year.  I may do more, and that’s okay, but the challenge is at the end of 52 weeks I would have completed 52 stories/rants/experiences that in some way gives a reader a glimpse into the Hunter Adventure.

To keep me accountable I thought what better way than to post it somewhere for the entire world to see.  Brilliant!

Side Note: Some days I feel like a live in a fish bowl, so why not let the entire world see things from my point of view? 

Not that I would have huge following that would rave about how funny my life has been and send fan mail to beg for more stories of my life.

It’s just the fact, that there maybe someone out there who notices that on one week, I don’t write. Then I see them and they say, “Hey, don’t I know you? Yeah, you’re that guy that challenged himself to that crazy idea of writing a story a week, and then posting it for the world to see?”

Then I will have to say shamefully,” Yes, yes! (emotional crying out loud) It’s me!” I will then hang my head in despair, take the cone of shame, place it around my neck, hunch over,  slowly turn and walk away.

So, yup pretty sure this will motivate me and keep me accountable for the 52 weeks.

I’m not sure it will be entertaining, witty or even funny. More than likely it will not be grammatically correct. It may even have a few misspelled words.  What I am sure of is that it will be authentic, truthful, and full of crazy thoughts. It may even have some raw transparency that shows who I am.

So to start I have a list of topics that well exceeds 52.  If you want, follow my blog and help keep me accountable, this way I don’t have to wear the cone of shame! I would welcome it your help!

You could even subscribe to my blog! That way if you miss a post for some reason and we see each other in public, we won't have any kind of huge argument, that store management or local authorities would have to break up as we get our pictures on the nightly news. Yeah… so, you might want to bypass all that and subscribe.

Okay, well…  start week is done!

On to the next weeks topic: Frogs, Frogs, and More Frogs!