Maine

On our 7 month adventure we finally got to Maine! We were very excited about our campsite because it had some crazy things such as a movie theater, A fishing/boating pond, an Ice Cream and pizza parlor, and even more. It was partly a portable home neighborhood, and partly a rental RV park. The best part of all was that it was only a 3 minute walk from the glorious downtown, named OOB (or Old Orchard Beach)-which was an cool sea village. After we first set up our camper, we were gong to take our bikes and ride through the park and into that town, to hopefully get to the beach. The best part about the town was how home-ish it felt. Each one-story shop was filled with great souvenirs that were of great prices and quality. Unfortunately, the pier at the beach (the beach was fabulous, by the way) was not very good.

The reason we went to the pier in the first place was because my little brother needed to use the bathroom. There was a man there collecting money in a 50 cents cup in order to even use the bathroom! The worst part was that we doubted that he even belonged there… We did not have any money and he said that he might not make it back in time, much less with a bike to carry back, and a kind man there payed a dollar so that him and my brother could both use the bathroom. Although we were impressed with the town (unlike the commercialized pier) we decided that we would have plenty of time to check it out one other day of the week that we would be there and call it a night. After we left to go back we had a nice BBQ and did just that. This is just one more adventure on our 7 month cross-country journey, with many more to come.

Beach Party in Ohio

I’m back again after a short break with another post from Ohio! I am completing yesterday’s post, Cedar Point, with the night time portion of my journey. Once we were about to leave we remembered that there was a beach party on the other side of the island! We passed all of the attractions to our left and right and made it to the lit up little building that seemed to be the only entry point in the metal fence that outlined the entire area. We showed our passes to the young adult that was running one of the few operators booth. We walked showed him our passes and he let us pass into he colorfully lit sand that pushed between our toes. We got off of the short concrete platform and walked onto the sand and looked around to see what we could do first! There were strange cubed seats that were only halfway transparent, only enough to let out constantly changing beams of light. The tables were similar. Some people wore necklaces and wristbands and headphones that all lit up in red or blue. There were booths with various things they were giving out and hotels that lined the sides. There was a DJ booth that stood on one side of it all while a huge group of adults (and children too) stood around to jump and move in the beat of the music. There were indescribable crystals (that ALSO changed color, might I add) that poked up every now again through the beautiful sand that held a collection of footprints. What a beautiful sight! It was hard to take it all in but we soon decided to soon walk over to the magnificent cubes that contained foot-long Jenga blocks that were stacked up and got to work. After a lot of laughter and taunts the tower was soon double what it once was.

We had soon gathered a small crowd (part of whom just wanted to play and a couple who were interested in what we were doing) and the large tower collapsed after a huge recovery from the previous player. There was also other games that lined the beach with multiple different groups playing at once. We later rented out some cool headphones that changed brightness with the beat and they gave us some free wristbands that said Cedar point. I walked over to the DJ booth to listen to the music he was playing while the people jumped and moved around in circles. I got some sand in my eye by getting a little bit too wild with the coffee grinder… I’m not going to say much about that. I had to take my contacts out and I got a water bottle to rinse them again so that I could get the pain out of them but it didn’t work as planned. I was all right after a bit but was unable to fully experience the fireworks as they were somewhat blurred, but they were still amazing. The music was playing while large light bulbs popped in the air- wow that was a terrible analogy. Forget I said anything! The fireworks were in different shapes and sizes and amazing to watch as every body had a great time together on the beach.

Art in Michigan

 

Starting fairly early in the morning I was woken up at around 8:00 to get my day ready. After only 20 minutes I stayed in the clothes I had slept in (I was exhausted last night after a long day of driving so I didn’t make any effort to change) and got into the car. After a while of watching trees go by and staring out the window we finally got to a booth that said Michigan County Beach. We paid and went through. When we got to the first beach we weren’t so happy with it so we moved on and went to the next one. When we got there we were very happy with the quality of the beach so we settled down and go the stuff out of the car. We walked around and opened the back trunk of the car and got the stuff out. we shut all three doors that made up the compartment (one on the top, one on the left and one on the right) and took what we had to the beach including 2 HEAVY DUTY shovels and a couple of towels. Once we got there we walked through the entrance to the beach (even though we could have easily walked around it) and were very surprised how organised everything was. At most beaches there is normally so much trash on the ground but it looked here as if they cleaned the entire place every hour! IT was so clean that they even had a Museum upstairs that had carpet floor without any sand in it at all. We didn’t stop to look around, we just walked from the smoother concrete into the soft squishy sand and laid our towels out. What does ANY of this have to do with art? Not yet, that comes LATER.

After a little while of sitting down and relaxing we got an idea of what we wanted to do next. Every time my little brother and I are at the beach he wants to build a huge sandcastle with walls and a large moat. That’s what we tried to do this time but for the first time the waves were too strong! We immediately realized what had gone wrong after the kings tower was crumbled into the moat and into the clear water in front of it. We had built the castle first. Not only that, but the water was creeping up and we knew that we had built it too close to the water. We tried to build the moat IN the water instead of behind it! We ditched the castle and tried to take what we could of the sand and then built another. Well, my little brother did at least. I walked over to the left while he walked over to the right and tried to build in the same spot; with only half of the crew. I went to the left, cleared a foundation, and build the structure. I started with the the spiral Staircases which only curved one rotation. I next build the first and second stories and then connected them with the balcony that laid above the small door below. Because all of the castles that my little brother builds with either wet or dry sand the lumps that eventually get destroyed do not take as much time to construct. I was almost done so I stopped and jumped into the Ocean- Nope, just a really big lake- and swam out to explore. While I WAS actually swimming, I didn’t really actually get my head wet. I didn’t stay in for long, and I only really grabbed a fossil and some small shells that were close to a cubic inch of capacity. I waded out of the water and I saw my brother digging strait down into the sand. What now? I walked over to him and he threw a shovel to me to start digging. The walls of the 3 foot hole were wider than it was deep because they kept falling into his legs and he would stop what he was doing to throw it out of the pit. I got in to help him and ended up getting very muddy while doing it. After 20 minutes he had dug a few more inches down and then water soaked through the floor and up into the hole he had just created while the walls caved in on themselves. my job was to use a paper cup to get it out. That didn’t last very long. I got out about another 30 minutes later and impaled the ground with the shovel, leaving the tip inside and the shovel standing at a 105 degree angle on the right. I dried off and walked over to a hill of sand and got almost to the top when I tripped and fell down to the bottom. My little brother was following me and he was what I did and decided to try it out. He thought it looked like fun. He got to the top and went limp, letting his arms and legs flail as he went down. After a while of that we packed up our stuff and went home. Once we were there we got out of the car and walked inside to the camper. After a while of relaxing we walked outside and went down to the beach that was conveniently located near the beach (though it was not accessible and only had weeds) but had a very nice view and fire-pits with some wood in order to lite it. The fire started small ad we threw the (American) football around to pass the time until it was big. Once we did we opened a pack of popcorn and did exactly what the directions said not to do- cook over an open fire which was ridiculous considering that the package actually had a fire-pit on the front and was BUILT for camping. Anyway, once we were done we walked back to the campground and went to sleep and THAT was exactly how the night slowly ended.

 

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#Art   # Beach   #Campfires #Michigan

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