THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 14, 1996 TAG: 9607110044
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KRYS STEFANSKY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 147 lines
AT CAMPSITE number 486, the McKee family is waking up to yet another day at the beach.
But even here, 14 hours and 40 minutes and 624 miles from home in Beavercreek, Ohio, 10-year-old Dan is not safe from his little sister. Halfway through a week in close quarters with Mom, Dad and you-know-who, the torture is coming. Again. Sure enough, Nicole, a second-grader, crawls out of her bed and sneaks across the pop-up camper trailer to plant a big smooch on her sleeping brother's face.
``She kisses me every day,'' Dan complains later. And when he does, his pixie-faced sister grins wickedly and lunges across the arms of a lawn chair to kiss him for the umpteenth time.
``You guys, cut it out,'' says their father, Toby. He is standing under a pine tree on the dirt road named Blue Claw Place in woods studded with tents and campers, sipping his first cup of coffee and rubbing a bristly chin.
Ahhh, the family vacation.
It's where summer memories are made. Where kids and parents harvest the stories that take them through another year. Where idle days spent at beaches, hotels, cottages and campsites far away from home turn into ``the time Dad caught the big fish,'' or ``the year the tent leaked.''
For the McKees, who looked up Hampton Roads on the map last winter, this will always be ``the summer we came to Virginia Beach.''
Five days into the trip east on I-64, they already had a few stories.
``We got stuck on the interstate in Charleston, West Virginia, for an hour,'' says Toby McKee, 37. ``No wreck, no accident, no reason.'' Back home, he's a purchasing manager for a special machine builder. His wife, Patti, 36, is a part-time nurse at a geriatric convalescent center. For the past 10 summers they've vacationed in Fort Walton Beach, Fla. But this year, in January, they started planning to come here after several of Toby's co-workers gave it a thumbs-up.
Up and down and over the mountains, finally they were breathing the salty air of the flatlands. Then traffic bogged down again.
``An hour and a half in the Hampton Bridge-Tunnel,'' Toby says. Again, no good reason in sight.
A beach vacation sounded good after snowstorms had dumped enough white stuff on Beavercreek to pile a wall six feet high on either side of the McKees' driveway. That time, Patti got snowed in at the convalescent center and worked 16 hours straight. At school, the kids counted seven snow days.
A week before they left home to come here, Patti started piling supplies on the living-room sofa, working from a computer list she's made up over the years. The heap included enough clothes and underwear for everybody to last the whole trip.
``It's no fun doing laundry on vacation,'' says Patti. For the same reason, they haul along two coolers full of groceries, including Toby's venison steaks.
To pass the time in the car, the kids each bring along a ditty bag full of distractions - books, toys, markers and paper.
The first night, the McKees got as far as a motel in Beckley, W.Va. Saturday, they reached the Virginia Beach KOA and set up camp.
Their new pop-up camper trailer is a snap to use. Fifteen minutes and it's snug and ready.
The mosquito shelter for around the picnic table is another story.
``Our marriage survived putting up the screenhouse,'' says Toby. ``Barely.''
``But we had to send the kids away on a bike ride,'' adds Patti.
Other camping trips had already proven that the blue screenhouse and its tangle of spindly poles will only stand upright after a healthy dose of cussing.
But now, five days later, Toby is in his element.
``This is the way to go,'' says the man who's been camping since he was 10. ``In a hotel you're basically on the beach, in a restaurant or in the room. There's nothing to do.'' The family has tent-camped since Dan was a baby and slept under the stars in a playpen.
Here, Toby's beer is cold in a small refrigerator and his golf clubs are an arm's reach away under the shell of his gray Ford truck. They've got a boom box, a clock radio, an electric coffee pot and a portable fan. Toby's pondering an air conditioner for the next trip - a week at the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri.
With all the comforts of home on wheels, entertaining the family is a piece of cake.
Sunday they hit the Boardwalk. Monday they went to the Virginia Marine Science Museum.
``Then Tuesday we went to the beach and got sunburned,'' says Patti. Today, Wednesday, it's back to the surf. The weatherman on the tiny TV has predicted a cloudy but passable beach day.
There's bacon for breakfast. Just bacon. It's vacation, after all, and nobody wants anything else.
The McKees bike to the bath house to brush teeth. Then a pile of beach gear starts to grow on the green indoor/outdoor carpeting under the camper's awning.
The day-trip cooler, the boogie board, the rubber raft, the sunglasses. Sand buckets, a grass mat and a zipper bag full of towels and goggles.
Everybody carrying something, the McKees head for the trolley stop inside the campground.
``Why does it seem like we don't have as much as yesterday?'' asks Toby, striding into a light drizzle. They sure don't have as much as the tourist who got on with them the day before. He carried a rubber boat. Inflated.
By 11:15 the trolley lets them off at 19th Street and Nicole strips off her shorts down to her bathing suit seconds after her feet hit the sidewalk.
The sun comes out. They make their way past the gift shops, across the Boardwalk, right up to the water's edge. They spread out their grass mat at the surfline, start unpacking and then - whoops! A wave creeps up and washes over half their stuff.
The folks from Ohio move back. Then out comes the sunscreen. Toby starts puffing into the raft. Patti, shoulders still red from yesterday's sunburn, rubs them with lotion.
Then she makes a move that'll set the agenda for the afternoon. She jumps into the surf with her husband and children, turns toward the beach, and a huge wave knocks her over. She comes back up for air on her hands and knees but without her sunshades and eyeglasses.
``I'm blind as a bat,'' she moans, pushing sandy, wet hair out of her eyes and wondering where to find the closest one-hour eyeglass store.
That and lunch take up the afternoon. By 6 p.m. they're back at the camper with Patti's new glasses, just in time to sit out a huge storm complete with thunderclaps and flashes of lightning. The torrent of rain pounds the camper's metal roof and sounds like fistfuls of marbles are being flung down out of the trees. It's raining so hard the dirt driveways look like creeks.
But it passes. The rain stops. Toby gets his coals going, puts on the venison steaks and has a beer.
He stands back to admire the effect of the string of owl lights around his awning and to breathe in the evening air.
He's oblivious to the jets screaming overhead and the roar of the highway traffic on the other side of the trees.
``Here you really sleep. The next step is going to be a motor home. That'll be . . . '' he says, looking over at Patti. ``What year does Nicole graduate from high school?'' ILLUSTRATION: CANDICE C. CUSIC COLOR PHOTOS/The Virginian-Pilot
Dan McKee, 10, relaxes in the family's camper while father Toby
prepares venison steaks for dinner.
Nicole McKee, 7, playfully teases her older brother, Dan, while
cleaning up the dishes from breakfast at the family's campsite at
the Virginia Beach KOA. The McKees packed enough belongings - from
coffeemaker to bicycles - to keep everyone happy.
After a trolley ride to the Oceanfront, the McKees (from left,
Patti, Nicole, Dan and Toby) prepare for a day of sun, sand and
waves.
Photo
CANDICE C. CUSIC/The Virginian-Pilot
Nicole and Dan McKee read a book in their family's pop-up camper
trailer. by CNB