This past year my family and I went to Fort Pickens on vacation in Florida. Fort Pickens has a RV campground on the beach which we stayed at with my In-laws. Picture this, two weeks in a camper with three girls, a wife, a mother-in-law, a father-in-law, and a brother-in-law. I can see your impressions now this has all the combinations for some Fun-in-the-sun. Well the trip started off great, all the girls were loving the beach but there was one problem. The beach was about a half-mile walk from the campground. On about the third day into the trip we were enjoying a morning at the beach but i think we may have stayed a little to long because the temperature was probably in the 100's and while we were walking back Haley found a cactus on the trail, she said "Dad what is this" and I told her. Next thing I know I look back and she is holding the cactus in her hand screaming. She was careful not to touch the lagre prickles but what she did not realize was that the real danger lies in the millions of small prickles that are not even hardly visible to the human eye. Now the real trouble starts, the twins have already been begging me to carry them back, I am feeling like I could literally melt from the sun beaming down on me and now Haley is about to pass out. Since Jodi is about seven months pregnant i guess asking her to carry Haley is out of the question. I throw Haley over my shoulder and continue on through the sand and endless heat. We arrive at the camper and everyone is relieved to be back but while i am spraying Haley off with the water hose she passes out and hits the ground. After a few minutes she is back to normal and everyone is relieved. Needless to say we did not walk to the beach anymore, instead we started driving to the beach down the road and this spot even had a lifeguard on duty. Well a copule days later we was at the beach and we had been cautiously watching the schools of stingrays that were swimming by occasionally while the girls and me were playing on a large inflatable dinosaur. I had put the dinosaur back on the beach and was out in the water with the twins and Jodi when I looked back to see Haley coming back from the beach trying to carry the dinosaur. The waves knocked him out of her hands and the wind had caught it, now the dinosaur is floating out into the shark infested waters, Jodi is yelling at me to go after it, Haley is crying, I am chasing the dinosaur, crowd on beach is watching the excitement with looks of horror on their face, 80 year-old man tries to aid in capture of dinosaur, Jodi is yelling at me some more, I am yelling back at Jodi "Do you really want me to die", by now the dinosaur has got to be about 80 yards out in the ocean, old man tells me he is sorry he could not get it but it was going to fast, all three of my girls are now on beach crying for their dinosaur, suddenly from the Life-Guard tower comes a young life guard carrying about a 10 foot surfboard, he starts paddling out after the dinosaur which is now about 150 yard out and gaining ground fast, Jodi is still yelling at me, I told the kids to wave good-bye to the dinosaur and nice life guard because they would probaly not be back. Well he caught up to the dinosaur only about 250 yards out, (good news) Jodi is no longer yelling at me because now she is not talking to me at all, all three girls have finally quit crying, but to make me feel even worse some looney man meets the life guard about half way up the beach and started carrying the dinosaur, as they walked up to me, the crazy man begins telling the story of the sea-monster (our dinosaur) he saw swimming by him, now everyone is praising the life guard as a hero, I am forced (by the crazy guy) to have a picture of the girls, myself , the life guard, and of course the sea-monster to be taken beside the life guard tower. The lesson I learned from this is to never take your dinosaur to the beach if he is not on a leash!
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