I made my first trip to the beach this season. While there, I took a few pictures of Joe so he could send them along to his family. The guy on the next blanket offered to take a picture of the 2 of us, and I didn't have the heart to say "no" to his generosity. I laughed as I gave him the camera and told him that this is my cousin's husband. He probably wondered what the heck I was talking about. He took a pretty good photo of us, though.I was surprised at how empty the beach was. There were a good number of people there (even though you can't tell from this photo), but not nearly as many as I would have expected. It was windy and a bit chilly, so maybe that's what kept people away.
About 1/2 an hour after we arrived, there was a series of tremendously loud beeps over the intercom. I thought someone was in trouble in the water. Or maybe there was some creature in the water or a strong undercurrent we needed to be concerned about. "May I have your attention?" a loud voice asked. I said to Joe, "Didn't the beeps already get our attention?" The announcer then said the owner of a car needed to move it because it was in a fire lane. As he started saying the state and license number of the car's plate, I realized it was my car. I was glad the beach wasn't more crowded since it was pretty embarrassing to be the cause of a blaring noise interrupting a quiet day at the beach.
I walked back to the grass parking area as the booming voice described the make, model and color of my car. When I got there, 2 kids in uniform who worked at the beach were standing nearby (who Joe and I had seen walking around when I parked in the alleged fire zone but didn't say anything, btw). I asked them where the fire lane was and they gestured to some orange cones in a rectangular-ish shape that were near my car. There were about 6 cars total parked in this giant area, so any fire truck would've had no trouble getting close. After I moved my car about 30 feet, some people sitting on the grass watching all of this said, in a funny tone, "You fire lane parker, you!" They knew the entire thing was ridiculous.
After that little adventure, Joe and I pondered what kind of fire there would be at the beach. Rather than a fire lane, a more accurate description would be an emergency lane in case someone got hurt in the water, or had a medical issue. In that case, there was a ton of open space for a vehicle to park and have quick access to the beach. It was around 2:30 so there weren't going to be many more cars showing up. When we walked to the car at the end of our stay an hour later, all the cones were gone. We concluded that the workers just wanted to use the loudspeaker.
