As Nicki Minaj once said, “Uh, let’s go to the beach-each / Let’s go get a wave.” I haven’t been to the beach in years, so Josh and I planned a beach day since we’re both off on Fridays. So we went yesterday!

Josh had a doctor’s appointment in the morning, so while he was there, I finished packing and made our lunches and snacks for the day. When he got back, we were off to Hammonasset Beach on the Connecticut shoreline. It was about an hour and 15 minute drive, and we got there around noon.

We got all of our stuff out of my car—there’s free parking for all CT registered vehicles at state parks and beaches—and walked out to the beach. It was fairly full but we were able to find a spot up in the back.

This was our set-up, nothing glamorous. The umbrella is the patio umbrella from my parent’s patio table, and we also got the chairs from them, too. The umbrella only fell over once; we jammed the pole in the opposite way and used a bungee cord to tie it to the cooler and Josh’s backpack. After that, it was fine. There was enough shade for both of us, and we’d either sit in the chairs or on the towels more in the sun.

Josh made sure we re-applied sunscreen every hour—he knows about my history of bad/random sunburns—and I wore my $10 sunhat from Walmart. I brought two library books with me and started reading one of them, Grave Reservations. I got about 50 pages in, and it’s good so far.

We also went in the water a few times; it wasn’t cold and we were able to go out pretty far with the water at my shoulders—for Josh, it was still at his waist 😅

We stayed until 4:30 before packing up and doing a quick change in the bathrooms. For dinner, we went to Little Pub in Old Saybrook, about 20 minutes from the beach.

Josh and I both got Baby Kittens from Fat Orange Cat and split a giant pretzel. I got the buttermilk ranch crunch wrap (fried chicken, tater tots, avocado, pico, cheddar jack, BBQ sauce, and buttermilk ranch dressing) and Josh got the buffalo chicken mac and cheese. Everything was really, really good.

We left around 6:15 and got back to my condo before 7:30. It was such a great day, and we want to get back to the beach one more time before my Fridays off end.

PS: As far as I can tell today, I don’t have any sunburns!