2 Fires + 7 People / 2 Beach Patrol Officers = Friday Night

bonfire
Originally uploaded by BeanTipton.

Justin and I went out with our Bible study group on Friday night. We were going to roast marshmallows at a beach bonfire. I was so excited. I love bonfires. I love marshmallows. I love my group. What more was there to say? We were totally in!

All-in-all, it was an adventure. Our first camp had to be moved, due to some faulty signage - or was it our inability to read it correctly? Perhaps it was our inability to obey the sign... However, since we saw plenty of people gettin' toasty by their fires, we figured it was our right to be there, too. You can probably see where this is going. Just as we set-up our fire (with an amazing flare technique that I had never seen and figured it must be a Marine-thing) the beach patrol drive-up. Officer One and Officer Two told us where we could move the fire and was actually very nice about it all.

So the guys lugged two very heavy pallets, stacked high with what I'm assuming was enough wood for three bonfires to last five days, back to the cars (not before discarding one of the pallets not far from a guy who was kneeling head-first into a bush).

We found the bonfire-friendly beach, but upon arrival we see Offier Beach Patrol One and Two, again. This time, we were told that pallets were not allowed on the beach. We found this odd, since we used the pallets to get the wood to our first site they busted. However, we are all still very thankful that Angela looked so innocent that the beach patrol told us that we could take it, but not to burn it. The second fire was lovely and hot. Very hot. We sat at least 15 feet away, because the flames felt like they were licking my forehead. Jeff sure knows how to make a fire!

There were some pretty drunk and interesting groups at the beach. There was Interesting, Bizarre Blanket-Moving Couple, Can’t Sing Whitney Housten and Don’t Have a Fire Group, Rude Garbage Burning Group, Loud and Ready to Jump Fires Fraterity Group and there was us – the Quiet, Mad-Libs Reading Group. However, we were the only one of those groups to have a person (who shall remain nameless) get hauled off by the beach patrol for lighting Mexican fireworks at the beach. Luckily, a fine was all that ensued and he got to drive home with all of us at 3:00 AM.

Moral of the story: read signs, don’t bring pallets to the beach, avoid annoying beach patrol, never sing Whitney Housen's The Greatest Love in public and the only thing you should be lighting on fire at the beach (other than wood) should be marshmallows.