A Late Night Walk on The Beach?

To some, it's romantic. To others, it's a party. There's nothing quite like spending the evening with your toes sinking into the wet sand of Lake Tahoe, the water splashing up to your ankles...and then you bring family into the equation and trauma commences.

It was last summer that we enjoyed a lovely trip to the beautiful beach that is Lake Tahoe. It was a family reunion, which scared me too at first, but I adjusted, and you should too. I mean...what's the worst that can happen with all my mother's family gathered within a square mile of each other, right?



It was a few days into said reunion, and I was sitting in my tent reading. Everyone else was out gossiping and trying to make each others lives a living hell...you know...family stuff. I guess I wasn't very family oriented at the time. I was on my way to the bathroom, when I passed my sister Jaella with two of my cousins--Becca, 17, and Brittany, 12--going on an evening walk around the entrance to the campsite. They invited me to go with.

Introduction to Becca: Ever since I was little, my parents have always told me that Becca was my twin cousin. Now being the only blonde-haired blue-eyed child in the family, this meant that I wasn't a complete freak of nature, since somewhere in the family, I was almost normal. Becca is a few months older than me and a lot more...experimental. We'll go with that.

So when I ran into her and found out she was wasted, I wasn't exactly shocked. We started walking and Jaella started rambling about how said psycho cousin had chased a 20 year old guy on a bicycle around in her drunken state until she got his number. How romantic, right? Then Becca remembers the phone number and decides to give it a ring. Somehow, this transitions into inviting him to the beach for some late night fun.

So we wander across the street to the beach to meet him, but he isn't there yet. So Becca gets impatient and decides to call him again. He tells her he's bringing his friends, which makes Becca uber happy and me very concerned, since all of his friends are guys. I might've gotten over it if Becca, being as desperate as she was, decided to change our ages. Brittany was now 13, Jaella was 16, I was 17, and Becca was legal, of course.

I expressed my concerns about our safety around a bunch of 20 year old guys, and was reassured that Becca, even in her stumbling state, could kick their asses if they tried anything, to which Jaella agreed.

As we were waiting for them to show up, we heard some rustling from under the dock nearby. Becca went to go see what it was, although it was way to dark to see. Becca declared it a raccoon, something Jaella and I weren't familiar with, being from Alaska. Jaella got excited and tried to get closer. Becca, who still couldn't see it, ventured closer, warning Jaella that they were vicious creatures. Deciding that Becca needed a scare, I came up behind her and turned on my flashlight, illuminating the Raccoon 2 and a half feet from Becca's face, making her jump back screaming. (This was the highlight of my night.)

When the guys arrived, I was relieved to find that he had only brought one friend. They were both drunk, and even brought a huge jug of alcohol in case their buzz started to fade. I was still a bit uneasy, so while Jaella and Brittany ran back and forth across the edge of the water, and Becca flirted with one of the guys, I sat off to the side, hoping to avoid any confrontations with the newcomers. That, of course, failed, when one of them repeatedly asked me why I was sitting alone, and why I was ignoring him...or something like that.

Thankfully, they eventually went away and we were free to go back to the safety of the campground.

And the next morning, we TPed our cousin Jesse's tent. Thanks Mom, you're an inspiration. :)