Nothing Like the Feeling of Grit Between Your Teeth

A few weeks ago we spotted an adventure in a travel magazine while flying on one of our adventures. It fit within our very strict standards for potential activities....ok our standards aren't really that strict. At the beginning of our adventure we had one standard- it had to look fun. Now we have a second standard- it has to be cheap. So this activity fit those two exacting standards quite well. It looked REALLY fun and it was under $30 for the family.

We went sand boarding in Florence, Oregon. Sand boarding is a little bit like snow boarding. Let me compare the two.

With snowboarding you have your booted feet strapped onto a board and careen out of control down snow covered slopes; sandboarding is the same except replace the snow with sand and take off the boots.

In snowboarding you get a little snow down your coat; in sandboarding you get get a LOT of sand down your shirt, down your pants, in your pockets, in your ears and most delightful of all, in your mouth, where it grits when you put your teeth together. It's especially fun wearing a retainer- just ask our 15 year old daughter.

In snowboarding the snow melts and goes away; in sandboarding you discover sand the next day in places you missed while cleaning up, like the cuffs of the shorts you wore or the deepest parts of your ears.

In snowboarding you fall really hard and hit your head; the same goes for sandboarding. They say it doesn't hurt with sandboarding because the sand is so soft.... they lie.

In snowboarding they have a delightful invention called a lift which takes you effortlessly up to the top of the hill again; in sandboarding they have a delightful thing called legs, which might explain why we lasted 3 hours vs. all day snowboarding. However, I can proudly say we lasted longer than anyone else on the dunes that day- not bad for a couple of oldsters.

Snowboarding can be cold; sandboarding was delightfully not hot on the Oregon coast.

Snowboarding's expensive; sandboarding's cheap.

Both are really fun.

Both are easier if you are a 13 year old boy than his 45 year old mom.

Both leave me with extremely sore muscles the next day.

Both leave me wanting more, that is as soon as my legs quit hurting.