The Hamster and the Highway

When I was little, I watched Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood pretty regularly. One of my favorite segments was when he would visit a factory and see how something is made. Despite the automation and repetition inherent in factories, there’s something mesmerizing about watching raw materials being turned into the things we buy. Nowadays there are multiple TV shows that are entirely composed of factory visits: How It’s Made on the Discovery Channel, Unwrapped on Food Network, etc. The hosts don’t bother changing his sweater and shoes, they don’t feed the fish, they don’t sing songs about friendship and confidence, and they don’t visit the Land of Make Believe; they just take you inside factories. Millions of people watch these shows. Sometimes I’m one of them.

Every time I plan one of these road trips, in addition to looking in general for fun things to do, I look for three specific things to include in our itinerary if possible: baseball games, state fairs, and factory tours.

We have had the absolute worst luck when it comes to state fairs; they always seem to be held the week before we arrive, or the week after we leave. This trip is no different in that sense, and we have still never attended a state fair.

We’ve done very well with baseball games. Most of the teams we want to see are in town when we are, and we’ve never been unable to get tickets to a game we wanted to attend.

Factory tours have been kind of hit or miss. We’ve been on a few that were really great (Ben and Jerry’s, Cabot Creamery) and few that were pretty good (Pez, Cape Cod Potato Chips), but we’ve also missed out on several for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes they’re closed when we’re in town. Sometimes they don’t give tours on the day we’re there. Sometimes the hours don’t work out. Once the public tour of a Hyundai plant somewhere in the south (Alabama, maybe?) was pre-empted by a private event for VIPs. When planning this trip, I was disappointed to learn that Kellogg’s and Post, whose headquarters we’ll be passing, do not give tours at all. And in Detroit, only Ford gives tours, and not on the day we’ll be there.

Still, this trip has a few interesting factory tours on the itinerary, and the first one was the American Whistle Company in Columbus, Ohio, the only company in America that manufactures metal whistles, and the official whistle provider of the Super Bowl, the NYPD, and hundreds of other whistle-using organizations. Unfortunately, tours are by appointment only, and require a minimum of 15 people. If you’re fewer then 15 they sometimes let you tag along with a bigger tour, but you’re at the mercy of whatever they happen to have scheduled. And of course I forgot to call in advance to see what they had available for today. I had pretty much written it off as impossible, but decided to call anyway when they opened at 9. To our delight, I was told they had a tour we could join at 10 a.m.

That gave us just enough time to stop off at a Family Dollar to buy Sam a toothbrush and purchase a few other items we needed.

When the tour began we were totally underwhelmed, as the whole factory is one large room in one small industrial building that is shared by another company. But the tour turned out to be a lot of fun, for various reasons.

For one thing, we got to walk right up to the machines and workers, and we saw real whistles in real production, not just a dog-and-pony show they put on for tourists.

They don’t allow photos of the production, so instead here’s a photo of the special gold-plated Super Bowl whistle.

For another, I saw a stark difference between the 9-year-old Sam I took on the first road trip and the 14-year-old I’m traveling with now: After mentioning referees and cops as groups of people who use whistles, the tour guide asked if we could name other groups. Sam leaned over to me and whispered, “Rape victims.” I have no idea where he learned about rape whistles, but I am certain he didn’t know about them at age 9.

A little later on, the tour guide ended up talking a lot about the “safety whistles” that the company manufactures for various colleges, neighborhood watch groups, etc. Sam was pretty proud of himself for being a step ahead of the tour guide.

Like any good tour, they gave out free samples at the end. Everyone on the tour gets a whistle, and the tour guide joked about how much fun the drive home will be once all the kids on the tour get whistles. I didn’t find it very amusing, considering that my drive home is 4,000 MILES! (Not to worry: the whistles are safely in the trunk of the car with all the other souvenirs.)

Besides the whistle factory, we didn’t have much planned in Columbus–just a quick peek at the state capitol and then Bicentennial Park, a well-reviewed park with cool fountains. But we ended up liking Columbus much more than we expected.

Downtown Columbus is small but very clean, very modern, very well designed, and, as Sam pointed out, very quiet–no sirens, no honking, no rumbling trucks. There’s very little street parking but ample reasonably-priced parking lots and buses (very quiet buses) that come by so frequently that I almost thought today was some sort of bus holiday.

The state capitol matches the rest of the city: attractive but not showy, with modern touches that really make it stand out from most others.

The park, too, turned out to be much better than expected. We got extremely lucky and happened to find a metered spot right next to the park, which is always a good sign. The fountains were much cooler and more robust than we described, because they are meant for splashing and playing in, not merely for looking.

There are even pristine, free changing rooms right near the fountains, as well as a schmancy restaurant overlooking the whole scene.

And the rest of the park was just as great. Beauty was everywhere we looked: the walking/running/biking paths along the riverbank, the bridges that span the river, and even the bike racks.

It was a little early for lunch, but we loved the park so much we decided to picnic there.

Sam was practically ready to move to Columbus, but we still had lots of fun planned an hour and a half away in Dayton, so off we went.

Our first stop was the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. You may remember that, on our last trip, we went to a museum in Arizona that boasted the second-largest collection of military aircraft in America. Today we saw the largest.

Most of the planes in Arizona are, understandably, kept outside, but in Dayton they’re almost all inside, as the museum is made up of four enormous hangars. The fourth is brand new, so our timing was pretty fantastic.

What makes this museum more special than the one in Arizona, aside from the air conditioning and the size of the collection, is the specific planes in the collection. We saw the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, a B2 bomber (the “Stealth Bomber”), a weaponized drone that flew missions over Afghanistan, and so much more that I’m not going to even attempt to describe it all.

[Side Note: Sam refused to be photographed in front of any fighter planes. “I don’t want to smile in front of a bunch of death machines,” he explained with conviction. It’s hard to believe that he’s the same kid who was joking about rape whistles earlier in the day.]

Better than all the war planes were the museum’s interactive features. We got to sit in the cockpits of an F-16 and an F-4, which was pretty cool.

The coolest part was a dogfight simulator in which we climbed into a little plane-looking box to play a video game–or so I thought. I realized what we were in for when they had us empty our pockets before we got in. I was the pilot and Sam was the gunner, and once we were strapped in we hunted enemy planes while the simulator really tilted and even rolled us to match what was happening on our screen. It was 4.5 minutes of intense action as we actually turned upside-down and sideways while chasing after enemy aircraft (we shot down 10 enemy planes). It was lots of fun, and it was surprisingly exhausting. Considering we were sitting the whole time, we were both a little baffled as to why we got so tired. My theory is that, as we were tumbled, our bodies naturally fought against the movement, futilely trying to remain upright and exhausting our muscles and our equilibrium in the attempt. With training and experience, I presume that actual fighter pilots get used to the tumbling and their bodies just let it happen.

But the real highlight of the museum was the Presidential Planes exhibit in the brand-new fourth hangar. There are 10 planes on display that had flown various U.S. Presidents, and visitors can go inside four of them. So of course we did. We were inside the plane that flew FDR to the Yalta Conference and I was struck by the custom elevator that allowed him to easily enter and exist in his wheelchair. We were inside the plane that flew Truman to Wake Island for a meeting with General MacArthur. We were inside Eisenhower’s plane, and I was struck by how his bathroom despite being made specifically for Presidential use, is still basically just a roomy airplane bathroom.

Yes, that’s the toilet sticking out in the back.

And finally, we were in JFK’s Air Force One. It’s the first plane to look like today’s Air Force One. It’s the plane that flew Kennedy to West Berlin to deliver the “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech. It’s also the plane where LBJ was sworn is as president in Dallas before flying back to Washington with JFK’s body on board.

On our last road trip we stood in the spot where Kennedy was shot, so this had a bit of added meaning for us.

Up next was another aviation-related stop that harkened back to a previous trip: The Wright Cycle Company in downtown Dayton.

The Wright Brothers lived in Dayton, where they ran a printing press, a failed newspaper, and eventually a series of bicycle shops. It was then that they got the idea to use some of the technology used in bicycles to design their first flying machine, and they soon started splitting the years between Dayton and Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The exhibits were just OK, but it was pretty cool to walk inside one of their actual bicycle shops. It was even cooler because I realized this morning that we were in Kitty Hawk exactly four years ago today seeing the fruits of the tinkering they did in this shop.

Our last activity for the day was a ballgame–specifically the Dayton Dragons, the single-A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds. The stadium doesn’t have an official parking lot, and private lots rarely allow tailgating, so before we headed to the game we grilled dinner in the Wright Brothers’ backyard–literally at a picnic table right behind their bicycle shop. After such a fun day, we decided to treat ourselves with a dinner of lamb chops, green beans, and snap peas, and it was DELICIOUS.

Not bad for a portable tabletop grill I keep in the backset of my car, eh?

The ballgame itself was mind-numbingly dull, as the Hometown Dragons took almost four hours to get destroyed by the visiting Bowling Green Hot Rods, but there were several particularly amusing moments. The great thing about single-A baseball is the accessibility to the players, and Sam took full advantage. First he had an intense pregame conversation with Bowling Green DH David Rodriguez.

Then he spent some time during the game chatting up the Bowling Green bullpen until one of them finally tossed him a ball.

[Side Note: This keeps alive Sam’s streak of getting tossed a ball at every single minor league game he’s ever attended. Someday soon he’s going to outgrow the cuteness that gets him such perks, but he’s milking it while he still can.]

But hands down, the best part of the game was the multiple appearances by the Mini Dugout Dancers, a  group of about a dozen girls who appeared to range from 8 to 12 years old and whose job is apparently to come out between innings a few times per game and perform highly choreographed dances to various songs, much like the Laker Girls but without all that pesky coordination. I’m going to do you a favor right now and share with you a short video of one of their performances, during which I zoom in on one of the younger girls because her over-enthusiasm is endlessly entertaining.

You’re welcome.

One final thought. Thanks to two weeks of political parties’ national conventions, there’s been a lot of talk about how and why Ohio is so important in presidential elections. “As Ohio goes,” someone always says, “so goes the nation.” This is somewhat true, politically speaking. (It turns out, in fact, that Donald Trump made a campaign stop in Columbus today shortly after we left.) And with so much time spent in Ohio, I’ve been thinking a lot about why.

So here it is: Ohio really is a small version of America. It’s got everything America is known for from sea to shining sea, all smushed into one medium-sized state that, as they say here, is round at the ends and HI in the middle. There are farms, there are cities big and small, there are major corporations and lots of factories. Today alone we saw Confederate flags and Hillary bumper stickers, posh restaurants and roadside diners, trendy biergartens and dive bars, major universities and check-cashing stores. There’s air pollution and there’s a beloved National Park. Ohio is major league and minor league; it’s blue and it’s red, it’s the Wright Brothers’ flyer and the stealth bomber. New York is wonderful in many ways, but there aren’t many parts of the rest of America that resemble New York. Ohio, on the other hand, and I mean this in a good way, looks like everywhere. Except for the Mini Dugout Dancers; they look like nothing I’ve ever seen.

Conventional wisdom says that Columbus discovered America; today, in a sense, we discovered America in Columbus.

An increasing problem with our road trips is that getting out of New York is getting more and more boring because there’s so little to do within a few hours of home that we haven’t already done. Thus the first stop on our trip seems to be getting further and further from home.

Case in point: when we started planning this trip, our first stop was going to be Columbus, Ohio, a nine-hour drive from home. Nine hours is a long time in the car, even for The Hamster and me. So instead we stopped off in northern Pennsylvania to explore Bushkill Falls, a series of waterfalls and hiking paths that I once visited with my family when I was a kid. So, less than two hours after we pulled out of our driveway, we were already wandering around on the hunt for waterfalls.

For a while I worried that we’d have to skip Bushkill entirely because the weather was pretty terrible when the day started. It was still ominously overcast when we got there, but thankfully the rain held up until we were ready to leave.

When we got there we learned that there are several hiking paths of various lengths and levels of difficulty, each one taking you to different waterfalls. I suggested the most difficult path, which excited Sam until he notice the sign that said it would take 2.5 hours. We ended up compromising by customizing our own path out of pieces of the others, and it included most of the hardest path but cut it short a bit to ease Sam’s concerns.

It was a good choice, because we saw lots of beautiful waterfalls, got a great workout (despite spending nine total hours in the car, my pedometer counted almost 11,000 steps today), avoided most of the slow-moving families, and had a pretty fantastic time.

Notice the lady in the bright yellow safety gear sweeping up the walkway. If you’re going to work as a cleaning lady, being a cleaning lady at a waterfall is probably the best gig you can possibly get.

The humidity was off-the-charts ridiculous, and with all the stair climbing and waterfall mist thrown in, we were soaked with a mix of waterfall mist and sweat by the time we got back to the car.

After some quick souvenir shopping we ate lunch in the parking lot and then gave our legs plenty of rest by driving more than 500 miles, most of which was on I-80 across the entire state of Pennsylvania and a large swath of Ohio.

Only 314 miles till the next turn!

We passed the time the usual way: chatting, listening (and singing) to music, keeping an eye out for interesting scenery (today we saw an old-timey car with Alaska plates, a giant coffee pot sign for a roadside diner, an easy chair riding in the back of a pickup truck, and a wonderfully colorful sky at sunset), and playing various road trip games.

Alaska!

When it comes to games, our old standby is hunting for license plates from every state (We’re at 37 already, including Alaska!) but with around 9 hours spent in the car today, license plates alone weren’t going to cut it. Another game we like to play, called Padiddle, is a contest to see who can spot the most cars with only one working headlight or taillight, shouting “Padiddle!” every time we see one. A new one in our repertoire is the cow game, in which you get a point for every cow on your side of the road. (It’s a bit more complicated, as crossing a body of water resets scores to zero, and passing a cemetery creates “ghost cows” that steal all your opponent’s cows.) We also competed to see who could do various things the longest, like holding our breath or not blinking, while Sam timed us. Sam won most of them.

And of course, no car trip of any length is complete without singing the songs from Hamilton. We got through the first half of the soundtrack today, and will no doubt finish it tomorrow on our way to Dayton.

The trip might have taken even longer, but I-80 is pretty generous when it comes to speed limits (70 most of the way). Unfortunately, the weather fluctuated between sun and blinding rain so we were not always able to take advantage of the high speed limit. We had it pretty good, though, compared to the folks heading in the opposite direction, because at one point we saw a tractor-trailer on the eastbound side that crashed into the guardrail and turned completely perpendicular to the highway, blocking all lanes and shutting the highway completely. Thankfully we were headed west and were thus unaffected.

One of the perks of Sam being a bit older and more capable every year is that he can do useful things while I drive. Today he looked up how far away upcoming rest stops were so we could decide when to stop for bathroom breaks and where to have our first roadside cookout of the trip. We had a bit of luck there, as a torrential rainstorm ended just minutes before we stopped for dinner, and the rest stop we chose had a couple of covered picnic tables, which gave us some protection in case the rain came back. Sam also spotted a bunny right near our table, and while we were eating the sun came out for good.

I wasn’t sure how far we’d get today, but we ended up making it all the way to Columbus, so tomorrow we can get an early start on what is going to be a day packed with destinations in Columbus and Dayton and very little driving, compared to today.

As I drove, Sam did a bit of research online to figure out where to spend the night. We ended up at a Red Roof Inn, a road trip first for us. For a mere $50, we got a clean, spacious, room with shockingly tasteful, modern décor.

We also got a shower head that I deeply appreciate. Even in fancy hotels the shower head is often around eye level for me, requiring me to crouch down just to wash my hair and face. So a little touch like this makes me smile:

We did not, however, get an elevator, which makes staying on the second floor a bit onerous. Almost half of the hotel’s parking lot is designated as handicapped parking spots, but with three steps up to the front door (no ramp) and no elevator inside, I’m not sure where all those handicapped people are going to go once they’re done parking. There’s also no continental breakfast, but we come prepared for such eventualities with emergency supplies.

What we don’t come prepared for, apparently, is basic hygiene. For days I’ve had a worrisome feeling that I forgot to pack something important. It turns out that I have everything I need so far, but Sam forgot his toothbrush.

All in all it was kind of a weird day, with all the action up front, all the driving on the back end, and plenty of unpredictable weather throughout. But we had fun, and we’re both looking forward to a meatier day tomorrow–even if it has to include buying Sam a new toothbrush.

Two years ago, when The Hamster and I drove Route 66, I wrote in this space that it was probably our last road trip. I was wrong.

On Sunday we’ll hit the road one more time, planning to spend three weeks visiting 13 states (and 2 Canadian provinces). 

This has been a tough trip to plan, mostly because we’ve been to so many places in so many parts of this country that there are fewer and fewer places we still want to go. I’ve already been to 47 states, and Sam has been to 46, so we could have happily retired from road tripping and been quite satisfied with our adventures. But the thing about visiting 47 states is that it’s really close to 50, and that makes you start thinking in terms of checklists and crossing things off those checklists. Checklists (states, ballparks, National Parks, famous monuments, major cities, etc.) have been especially useful in our planning over the years, and the more we travel, the more we tend to start our planning with the  question, “What’s left?”

I haven’t been to Louisiana, Nebraska, and North Dakota. Same for The Hamster, plus he’s never been to Wisconsin. A quick look at the map shows that hitting all four in one trip is a little ridiculous, but three of the four aren’t terribly far from each other. And thus our next epic father-son cross-country road trip (our fifth) was born.

The trouble is that there’s a reason we skipped those states on previous trips: there’s just not as much exciting stuff to do there as there in the states we’ve already visited. And because we’ve been through much of the Midwest on previous trips, we’ve picked the region’s tourism plate pretty clean.

So our itinerary for this trip is not full of must-see National Parks or bucket-list attractions. But we’ve still managed to load it up with some pretty great stuff. In addition to visiting Nebraska, North Dakota, and Wisconsin, we’re going to hike to waterfalls in Pennsylvania. We’re going to be driven around the track where they hold the Indy 500. We’re going to drive an ATV at an obstacle course in rural Illinois. We’re going to go fly fishing, if I can get the details worked out. We’re going to visit three Canadian cities and a Viking ship in Minnesota. We’re going to climb to the top of a historic lighthouse on a tiny island in the St. Lawrence River. We’re going to take pictures standing next to such roadside oddities as a giant rooster with a top hat, a statue of Paul Bunyan holding a hot dog, and the world’s biggest ball of stamps. And, of course, there will be a few baseball games along the way.

One thing we’ve learned by doing this four times already is that the destinations are only part of the fun. So much of the appeal of these trips comes from scenery, the hunt for license plates, the weird conversations, the sing-alongs, the dumb jokes, the random rest-stop cookouts, and the opportunity to spend a few weeks having some carefree fun together instead of bickering over homework and chores.

So bring on the weird museums and the weirder statues. We don’t need Mount Rushmore or The Golden Gate Bridge in order to have an unforgettable trip. All we need is GPS, a sense of adventure, and each other. 

And that giant barrel of pretzels from Costco. We can’t forget the pretzels.

When this, our fifth road trip, is complete, The Hamster and I will have visited 49 states and most of the country’s most iconic attractions. But as thorough as we’ve been, there are still some pretty important places and things we haven’t seen in person. Here, for no good reason, is a list of what we’ve got left, ranked in order of our desperation to go there.

1. Louisiana
2. The Grand Canyon
3. Yosemite
4. The Hoover Dam
5. Death Valley
6. Denali
7. Las Vegas
8. The Grand Tetons
9. The Alamo
10. The Florida Keys
11. Carhenge (Look it up. It’s in Alliance, NE.)
12. Austin, TX
13. The Gulf of Mexico
14. Florabama

Magnified and sanctified may His great name be in the world that He created, as he wills, and may His kingdom come in your lives and in your days and in the lives of all the house of Israel, swiftly and soon, and say all, “Amen!”

May His great name be blessed always and forever!

Blessed and praised and glorified and raised and exalted and honored and uplifted and lauded be the Name of the Holy One (He is blessed!) above all blessings and hymns and praises and consolations that are uttered in the world, and say all, “Amen!”

May a great peace from heaven–and life–be upon us and upon all Israel, and say all, “Amen!”

May He who makes peace in His high places make peace upon us and upon all Israel, and say all, “Amen!

The words above are the English translation of the words I have been saying, without fail, every morning, afternoon, and evening since October 12 of last year, when my siblings and I buried our father.

The “Kaddish” prayer is said for a deceased parent for 11 months of the Hebrew calendar. Its purpose, in essence, is to elevate the spirit of the deceased. Saying Kaddish is both a privilege and a burden, as it must be said in the presence of at least 10 Jewish adults, and it must be said at each of the three daily prayer services. It thus became my obsession for the past 11 months. I planned every day around the times of the prayer service, turning down all sorts of events and social engagements because they would prevent me from making it to a synagogue in time to say Kaddish. Every Jew is obligated to pray three times a day, but there is a much greater impetus when prayer is an opportunity not only to connect and communicate with G-d but to earn cosmic extra credit for your dead father.

Kaddish is the reason there was no cross-country road trip this summer, as finding a prayer service three times a day is impossible in large swaths of this great country. On past road trips the Hamster and I missed regular prayer services on multiple occasions in favor of spending time in National Parks, small towns, and various other fun places that don’t have enough Jews for such things. This was a conscious choice of which I am not particularly proud, but the stakes are much higher when your father’s soul is on the line, so this summer I was determined to stay close to home so as not to miss a single service.

In other words, I spent this summer with my father instead of with my son.

This afternoon marked the end of the 11-month period, and I said Kaddish for the final time. Friends who have lost parents warned me that I would feel a mix of emotions–relief at the end of the burden of saying Kaddish every day, sadness at being confronted with the loss once more, and closure as there is now no more I can do, spiritually speaking, for my father. They were right–I felt all those things, plus a touch of pride at having successfully fulfilled my duty as a Jew and as my father’s son.

This afternoon, in a quiet moment, I read to myself the eulogy I delivered for him 11 months ago. The tears came back, of course. I’ve spent the past 11 months burdened with handling my father’s estate and constantly saying Kaddish, and as a result I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the burden and very little time thinking about the man. Today my thoughts were in both places.

The burden, and the privilege, are now behind me. Ahead of me is next summer, and thoughts of how the Hamster and I might spend it.

YEEEE-OOOOH!

1. Skudin Surf School is awesome. We had the same main instructor every day, but our secondary instructor changed a few times. Every instructor we had was friendly, patient, encouraging, and knowledgeable. I can’t say that I’m a very good surfer, but I can legitimately say I can surf. On Monday I was excited every time I managed to stand up; by Friday I was catching most of the waves I attempted and I was annoyed at myself anytime I didn’t stand up. And on Friday I made the biggest step of all, which was that I was catching waves without any help from the instructors. When we started they would hold our boards, put us in position, and give us a push. Today they did none of that for me; the only help they gave me was to sometimes tell me when a good wave was coming, but several times I was able to read the ocean well enough to choose a wave, figure out the timing, and build up the momentum I needed all by myself. I really feel like I can go surfing all by myself now, which was my main goal for the week. Thank you, Skudin. This was money and time  well spent.

Here I am paddling to build momentum so that I can ride the wave that’s building behind me

Timing my pop-up just right

Getting into position

Ride, Sally, Ride!

2. Surfing is really hard. There are so many things you need to be good at in order be any good at surfing: paddling, popping up, balance, body control, timing, technique, reading the waves, anticipation, and much more. Even the pros misread the swells sometimes, pick the wrong wave sometimes, and wipe out sometimes.

Wipeout!

3. At the same time, just about anyone can do it. This week is Surf Week in Long Beach, with various competitions and events throughout the week. Yesterday there was adaptive surfing, and both kids and adults with various paralyses and muscle disorders were surfing with different kinds of help. Today there’s blind surfing: pros tell the kids where to position themselves and when the waves are coming, but then these blind kids do a better job than I did riding the waves. It’s pretty inspiring.

4. Surfing is exhausting. Every day this week I was barely able to move by the time I got home. Tuesday through Friday I woke up with deep soreness in various muscles. Yes, there are some fat surfers, but not many–it’s a serious workout.

5. Fatigue makes you suck at surfing. Every day this week I was significantly worse after lunch than I was before lunch, mainly because fatigue causes bad form and makes balancing much harder. And today,when I was doing all the work myself, I wasn’t able to generate the speed I needed to really get into most of the waves I attempted.

6. Surfing is dangerous. My final inventory of minor injuries is comprehensive. Cuts: left big toe, left knee (2), right knee, right ankle, right heel. Bruises: Left forearm (2), right forearm (3), chest, right shin (2). Soreness: shoulders, lats, triceps, lower back, hips, groin, ankles, toes. A girl in my group today got a bad rope burn when her leash wrapped around her knee and wouldn’t let go. Also, a pretty experienced kid paralyzed himself this week by foolishly diving headfirst off his board into very shallow water. And, you know, sharks.

7. Sometimes you do everything right and it still doesn’t work out. The wave can crash too early or can lose steam, or other surfers can get in your way, or any of a multitude of other mishaps.

This time a traffic jam prevented me from getting up

8. For hours after you leave the beach, and even when you close your eyes in bed at night, you will feel phantom waves gently rocking you back and forth.

9. One shower is not enough. One shower will wash off the sand, the salt, and some (but not all) of the sunscreen. It will make you feel like a person again and it will make your hair feel like hair. It will also help you find any cuts and scrapes you didn’t notice throughout the day, and it will let you know exactly where they are by making those spots sting like hell when the water hits them. But after one shower you will still smell like the beach and your skin will still have a slight hint of stickiness where traces of sunscreen remain. A second shower a couple of hours later is not absolutely necessary, but it feels better than you think it will.

10. Surfing with a friend is more fun that surfing alone. I’m excited to go surfing on my own in the coming weeks, but it would be better if I had someone to go with who’s not too much better or worse than me. Perhaps the annoying loudmouth is available?

11. The annoying loudmouth turned out to not be as annoying as the week went on. He was probably the best surfer among us campers, and he got friendlier and more humble. He even embraced the mocking nickname that the instructors gave him (Shivers, because he was always shivering even when the water wasn’t very cold). I’m going to miss Shivers and the rest of the gang.

12. Anything worth doing is worth doing well. I don’t enjoy being bad at things (who does?), and it’s not always easy to get better. This week was incredibly demanding, both physically and mentally, but it was so rewarding. I could feel myself improving at all aspects of surfing, and it felt great. Riding big wave after big wave on Thursday was such a thrill, both because it was physically exhilarating and because it was emotionally validating. And having some success on my own today filled me with the same kind of confidence and pride I felt when I was first able to ride a two-wheeler without falling. It was far from easy, but few things in life are. Allow me to speak metaphorically for a moment: when you want to achieve something, big waves will always come along and threaten to knock you off course. If you don’t know what you’re doing or if you try to run away, you’re going to get pummeled. The key is to meet the oncoming trouble head on and start paddling; it won’t be long before you come out on the other side with your head held high, ready to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

13. It takes a surprisingly long time to get that last bit of water out of your ears. That’s not a metaphor–there’s just water in my ears.

If I’m going to be completely honest, I have to admit that I thought about playing hooky on Day 3. I woke up Wednesday morning so sore and broken that I didn’t think I had the strength for a few more hours of surfing. But all week the head instructor, Roy, had been telling us that the waves were going to be really good on Wednesday, and what kind of surfer would I be if I missed the best waves of the week?

The sky was dark gray all day, and the waves were intense. Paddling out for the first time in the morning was tough, but the waves were coming in sets, so we’d wait for a set to pass and then paddle like mad to try to make it past the break during the lull before the next set hit. It took a lot of patience and a lot of strength, but we did it.

The waves were massive. They weren’t just big, though. They were fast, and they were powerful, and they broke hard, kicking up all kids of whitewater. It was exhilarating and intimidating at the same time. Unfortunately I didn’t surf very well. With the slower waves on Tuesday I was able to make little adjustments to my form while I was riding the wave, but on Wednesday the faster waves gave me no time to react. I battled, and I managed to ride a few of the big ones, but I spent most of the day falling off my board, swallowing salt water, and getting pummeled by wave after wave while trying to paddle back out. When you finish reading this, go to your laundry room or local laundromat, climb inside the dryer, fill it with salt water, and turn it on. That’s pretty much what Wednesday felt like.

Some aspects of it were fun but I got increasingly frustrated with my lack of progress and increasingly bruised in severalplaces from getting smacked around by the waves and my board.

I was actually relieved when we had to call it quits half an hour early because someone saw lightning. It wasn’t even raining hard but the weather was clearly worsening so everybody scurried off before the storm got too bad. I got to my car without getting very wet but I didn’t drive two blocks before the skies opened up and it was raining so hard that my windshield wipers couldn’t keep up with the downpour. Suddenly streets began to flood and there were a few points where the water was so deep I didn’t think my car was going to make it through.

Thursday was a completely different story. The clouds were gone, the sun was out, and I felt surprisingly refreshed and energetic. The waves were still pretty big, but the lulls were a little longer, so paddling out was less of a fight. I celebrated by successfully riding almost every wave I attempted, including a couple of really huge bombs. It felt awesome! All the struggles of Wednesday paid off; my form was better, my timing was better, my technique was better, and I was able to handle the power and speed of the waves.

You know how real surfers, instead of just riding straight into the beach, ride sideways along the wave, just in front of the curl of crashing whitewater? I DID THAT! TWICE! I didn’t even mean to, really–it just kind of happened, and I went with it, and it was awesome! All morning I was absolutely killing it (we all were), and I even tried grabbing a few waves of my own without the instructor giving me a starting push (with mixed results).

After lunch I ran into some bad luck on a few attempts–one wave died on me, one time I got my foot tangled in the leash, etc. By then fatigue set in and my form was falling apart. This is what sucks about being 40; the instructors and the other campers who are here all week are all much younger than me, and I just don’t have their stamina. But I didn’t let it bring me down. The two biggest compliments the instructors can give you are yelling, “Yeah, Adam!” and, if you have a really fantastic run, they’ll howl, “YEEEE-OOOOH!” I got a bunch of both on Thursday, and I even got some compliments from instructors of other age groups.

Even with my afternoon fatigue and suckiness, Thursday was a fantastic experience, and it totally reenergized me for my last day of camp on Friday. Can’t wait!

1. Wearing your own rash guard will do you no good. The instructor will make you wear the camp’s rash guard anyway so that the lifeguards know whom you belong to. Grrr. On the bright side, they had a size Large today.

2. SO. MUCH. SALT.

3. Surf conditions change by the hour, not just by the day. Tide, wind, temperature, and more all contribute. Before lunch we had smooth, powerful, medium-sized waves, warm temperatures, and a little bit of sun. After lunch we had choppy waves in a mix of sizes, strong winds, dark clouds, clod water, and eventually rain.

4. Surfing in the rain is exactly like surfing without rain, Either way you’re soaking wet, both from above and below.

5. The annoying loudmouth in the group gets a lot quieter once the instructors give him a derogatory nickname.

6. Sunscreen on your board = slippery board = lots of wipeouts before you get annoyed enough to trudge all the way back up the beach to change to a less slippery board.

7. The upside to bigger waves is that it makes surfing more fun. The downside is that it’s much harder to paddle back out to catch the next big wave.

7. Everything hurts. Everything. My neck hurts from keeping my head up as I paddle out and from constantly looking around to see what’s coming. My shoulders and back hurt from paddling. My chest hurts from hours spent being bounced up and down on the board. My elbows hurt from rubbing them on the board while waiting for the next wave. My knees hurt from bouncing and rubbing. My toes hurt from grabbing the board. My hamstrings hurt from … I don’t even know why my hamstrings hurt.

8. When a big wave comes along but crashes a little too early, it crashes right down on your head, pounding you and, if you’re not super careful, throwing you off your board. When this happens a whole bunch of times in a span of about 15 minutes, you end up feeling like you’ve just lost a boxing match.

9. I am a lot better at surfing than I was yesterday. My pop-ups are far from perfect or even consistent, but I was often able to readjust and to fight to keep my balance instead of going down with every wobble. I was even able to steer a little. But I still suck at surfing. It’s a good thing there are three more days of this.

10. Despite all of the negatives and all of the soreness, I deeply enjoyed myself today and I’m really looking forward to the next three days. When you get everything right and ride a wave all the way to the sand, it feels so freaking good that all you want to do is paddle back out for more. I just hope there’s a Large rash guard waiting for me in the morning.

1. Bring your own rash guard (the shirt you wear to surf if you’re not awesome enough to wear a wet suit). The instructor said it’s supposed to fit snugly, but the biggest size they had was Medium, and I’m 6’2″. I haven’t worn a medium since, I dunno, probably seventh grade. It fit snugly, alright. And by “snugly,” I mean its seams were under more stress than Donald Trump’s publicist.

2. Do not store valuables inside your nose, because inside your nose is where the entire ocean is going to go.

3. You are not going to want to add salt to anything you eat for a good, long time.

4. Waiting several minutes for a decent wave to come along and then wiping out right away sucks.

5. Riding a wave all the way is physically fun, but even more enjoyable is the feeling of knowing you finally got it right.

6. No matter where you go or what you do, there will always, always be an annoying loudmouth doing it with you.

7. You will come home with nicks and scrapes you don’t remember getting.

8. When applying sunscreen, do not neglect the backs of your knees. Ouch.

9. Sign up for the whole week. Sure, one day is cheaper and easier, but it’s much more fun to be good at something than to suck at it. I rode about a third of the waves I attempted before our lunch break. After lunch I rode about half. I hope to continue improving, and my goal for the end of the week is to be not terrible at surfing.

10. You will be sore, and you will be exhausted, and you will not be able to wait until you go back tomorrow for Day 2.

Many of you have asked where this summer’s epic road trip will take the Hamster and me. Sadly, there will be no road trip this summer as I am still in my year of mourning for my father, and many of the practical aspects of the observance of mourning make an extended road trip so difficult as to not be worthwhile. So Sam is working as a CIT at a local day camp while I try to round up smaller adventures wherever I can find them. The biggest of such adventures began today: a week of adult surf camp in Long Beach. The waves are small today but so far I have managed to ride a few (and wiped out on several others). Stay tuned for other adventures, including sailing school, a kosher Indian cooking class, and a few days in Lake George. Here’s to sucking ask the marrow out of summer!