Cape Cod, The Final Installment

It’s about 3:30 in the afternoon on a gorgeous sunny day, and the wind has picked up.  Two young geniuses are pushing their expensive mountain bikes through the rutted sand.  Sand is flying around either being windblown or kicked up by these two boys.  You don’t have to be an engineer to figure out that sand, grit, and salt water aren’t recommended around trivial bike things like brakes and shifters. 

Pulling up the rear are the mom, dad and grandma, “The Talking Caboose.”  You see, grandma is yacking it up on her phone non-stop for the whole world to hear. 

Dad is, of course, carrying what looks like a tent.  This should be fun to watch. 

The boys stop and of course plant their bikes on the wet sand, and to add insult to injury, perpendicular to the wind; thus exposing the entire length of the bike to the wind. Immediately the wind picks up and blows both bikes over into the salty, wet sand. Now blowing sand and grit, not to mention salt water is finding its way into every nook and cranny of these two bikes. Next stop bike shop. 

While the bro’s are watching their bikes fall down in the sand and get ruined, dad whips out, you guessed it, the tent.  Apparently, putting up tents during extremely windy conditions is the new black on Cape Cod this year.  In any event, it is a thing of beauty to witness. Dad is nearly airborne since the tent has caught wind and he is struggling to keep his feet on the ground.  Mom pulls out of the bag a rod-like apparatus that snaps open and extend about 12 feet.  As these rods whip in the wind, they nearly poke the out eyes out of a nearby toddler, innocently playing in the sand.  These deadly rods are Jedi light sabers on steroids.  Grandma is oblivious to everything because she is still talking non-stop on her phone.

Dad is now sitting on the tent while mom starts to thread the rods into the loops on the tent.  The wind is buffeting them around and the tent goes airborne again.  Whoever said that two heads are better than one never met these two.  This tent refuses to stay on the ground. Undeterred, dad tries a new tack; he reverts to caveman days by using a rock to hammer smooth metal pegs into the wet sand in an attempt to keep the tent on the ground.  Will it hold?  Not!  He bangs one peg in, turns his back to get the second peg and the first one pulls out.  Repeat. After three failures you want to go over to him and shake some sense into his head.  “IT WON’T WORK!”  While dad is doing his Neanderthal shtick, mom finally succeeds in getting the rods into the tent, but not before nearly shish-kababing grandma.  Grandma on the other hand doesn’t even bat an eyelash being so engrossed in her conversation on the phone.  The two boys are picking up their bikes for what seems the hundredth time. Finally the tent is up but won’t stay on the ground.  Solution? Insert grandma inside the tent and weigh her down with small boulders.  I kid you not.