Beaches, Beaches, Beaches…..

This morning I got to sleep in until 8:30! I was so happy! No more of this 6 am crap! I wanted to find a beach to take mom to since she loves the water so I woke up and started google-ing places to go. Found a couple on a list and printed them off. We got ready and off we went to Wal-Mart to exchange my GPS. This is not the month for me and GPS’s. My last GPS died on me and I’ve only had this GPS a little over a month and the touch screen on the keypad went to pots already. Thank goodness it has a one year warrantee and I bought the second year for cheap. Whew! So we went into Wal-Mart and I thought for sure they were going to give us some junk about how we needed to send it in since there was a one year warrantee on it and the one we had needed to be the one to be fixed and I was all prepared with my “You don’t but a GPS because you know where you’re going! I need the GPS now to get around!” Oh I was prepared to be heated and passionate for my need to keep the GPS on me. I would have none of this sending it in to the manufacturer because it went faulty after one week. Oy! So we went in, and it went smooth as a baby’s lotioned backside. We walked up to the returns line, they told us to go to the back and they brought the new one up front for us, they exchanged it and we walked out the door with a new GPS to program. It was absolutely glorious!

After the GPS expedition coffee was a must. So we went through Starbucks. They have a small parking lot in their Starbucks and some guy parked dumb so I could park next to him and there was a lot of backing out going on and this one guy wanted out so I moved my car around and mom was freaking out afraid everyone was going to crash. It was a bit dramatic for just wanting to go in and get a cup of coffee. Alas, all the cars cleared, we parked safely and went in to get the coffee. Mom was going to stay in the car to calm her pending heart attack but I convinced her to get out of the car and get some fresh air, I can’t walk well with one coffee nonetheless two coffees!

NOW we were ready to start the day. With our new GPS and Starbucks coffee on board we typed in Lighthouse beach and off we went. We arrived at the beach after many redundant turns in the parking lot and parked. It was a bit brisk by the water, and windy. And naturally I forgot my gloves in the car. We started taking pictures and exploring the area. I was beginning to wonder where the lighthouse was because you couldn’t’ see it when you arrived there but after going up a small hill it was in sight. There was a Coast Guard near by and there was some ship out, no idea if it was related or not. The pier was fenced off, not sure if it was decaying or just too windy and cold for it. The seagulls were enjoying the serenity of it though.

We continued walking towards the lighthouse and taking pictures and freezing our butts off! Naturally all the things that happen when you’re cold started happening to me, my ears were freezing, my nose was running, and me dumb left eye started watering. What a wreck! Apparently I was moved by the beauty of it all. It became very overcast on our drive over so the pictures made it look as though it was almost sunset but it was about 11-11:30 in the morning actually. It was still beautiful. Mom decided at some point after my million comments of freezing that she should put on the gloves she had with her and I said “Oh that’s a good idea, use the warmth that you have on you!” (Not with a sarcastic tone of course). She was wearing a brown shirt, vest, coat, gloves, shoes, and her hair is brown. I said “Everything you’re wearing is brown! You look like a poop!” Thankfully she caught the humor I intended when I said it and laughed. I soon realized that I too had another source of warmth on me (a hood that I forgot I had) and utilized it but not before my mother repeated what I said to her in the same sarcastic tone. Touché…..

After the lighthouse we decided to explore the Tanger Outlet sign we had seen on the interstate and set out in search of it. Because it’s not like we haven’t hit any outlet malls in the last week and a half. It turns out the second outlet mall out here is about 5 miles past the one we went to almost a week ago. How crazy is that!!?!  So we looked around at the outlet mall for a little while and decided that we were very hungry. We must find food!

Our search for food of course took us to the brand new sparkling GPS. There wasn’t anything “commercial” in the town we were in so we decided to try a local place called “The Whole Enchilada.” It ended up being a to-go Healthy Mexican Food place with all locally grown food. It was really good! They had a couple chairs in there that you could sit down to eat at. I ordered a BBQ chicken quesadilla that was marvelous! Mom got a burrito that was loaded. We were stuffed with our healthiness!

After that we went in search of a couple more local beaches, we only went to two of them because both of them took us to dead ends and to places where you couldn’t park. They were private beaches I suppose. It was still really beautiful to see though. We then set out in search of some more shopping. We found a mall that was about 20 more miles away so we thought hey why not! So we went to the Crystal Mall. On our way to the Crystal Mall we saw a couple exits for beaches and mom had been marveling at the beauty of the water and I offered to get off on the exits to go to the beaches and she would say “No we don’t have time.” Really mom? We can shop anytime. Let’s go find you a beach now! So I got off on an exit for the Niantic Bay Boardwalk. I thought a Boardwalk sounded fun! So we went on a little bit of a drive, but a really pretty one in search of the Boardwalk. We finally found it and it was really beautiful. It was still pretty chilly out but the sun was finally shining brightly and we got some good pictures. There were bird prints all in the sand that looked really cool. There was a man doing something in the water, I’m not sure what. People were walking their dogs; the seagulls were hanging out on the rocks. What a beautiful afternoon!

After our little side trip we set back out for the Crystal Mall. Upon our arrival to the mall I did find out that it was in fact not made up of Crystal but there were some good deals to be found. We shopped, found a Super Wal-Mart to go get a couple of needed groceries at and started heading back to Hamden. On our way back I got confused when the interstate forked and mom was like “Go this way!” To which I replied “Robert Frost talked about the two paths but he never said which one to pick!” To which we both started laughing. Well it’s true…..Frost in all his wisdom never flat out said which one to choose so I have to follow the sometimes not so direct GPS. Just saying…..

We found our way back to the beloved Target area, stopped into Big Lots to make a return, went to Best Buy to purchase a new hard case for the snazzy new GPS that way it wouldn’t get destroyed while in my purse and went back to Big Lots for popcorn where I discovered the LARGEST box of pop tarts I have ever seen in my life! They were huge! There were 48 pop tarts in this box! So naturally I had to take a picture with them. (It’s on face book)

We then made the trek back home, unloaded and mom started packing. We had to go find the old GPS, ate a late dinner of leftovers, uploaded the day’s photos, and played cards. I would say that is a darn full day! I’m pretty pooped to say the least but what a fun day!