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Part 2: Boardwalk and Beauties
For the last three years, I have gone to the Intermountain Fair. You know the scene: funnel cakes, corn dogs, and milkshakes; friends on The Zipper and the 2,000’s. And it’s great! But in July, I saw the Fair on steroids when I went to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.
First I saw all of these people, and I got a bit overwhelmed. A girl (she had dark curly hair and beautiful blue eyes) told me my shoe was untied. I thought all the people there couldn't be that bad, right? Then I decided to start speaking up and talking to anyone and everyone there. I saw this girl dressed like a boy, and I said, “That girl over there, she's top-notch beautiful!” She turned around and smiled right at me. I got so many butterflies! Now, I know I'll never meet that girl again, but I should have got her number.
After walking around for a bit, my cousins and I all took a picture together. It was kind of awkward. I don't know why, but my cousin Jakoby was acting off, maybe he was just eager to go to the beach. We made it to The Boardwalk and went to get our wrist bands. It was 74 bucks for a day pass! We thought that was insane! So, we waited till 4:00 p.m. because then the bracelets were only 27 bucks each. It was only 3:00 p.m. so we didn't have to wait very long. First, we went to the beach, but we didn't get in the water because we didn't want to get wet and sandy, just in case we met someone cute. Our grandma went and got us a mango smoothie, and that is probably one of the only times I'll say that a mango is good. After I got a brain freeze from drinking the mango drink so fast, I realized that I must have been eating mangos all wrong because this was delicious! Kira, William, Regina, and I went to walk around The Boardwalk, but first, I really had to go to the bathroom. My cousin Kira and I went to the bathroom, and that bathroom was so big, there were like 20 stalls on each side, and there were only like 5 sinks. There was a screaming, crying baby in the bathroom and the mom was nowhere to be seen. I started to talk to the baby and right away it stopped crying. I was so proud of myself for making that baby stop crying, but what am I supposed to do? I couldn’t adopt it, so we took off. Mom had to have been there.
Anyways, at 4:00 p.m. we went to get our bracelets. My cousin Regina bought a card, but we couldn't buy anything unless we had a Boardwalk card. I know that because once we got our bracelets, I tried buying an ice cream, and they said they don't take cash or other cards. What a bummer. Finally we went on some rides. The first one I thought was going to die. It was like a drop that went up slowly up then down really fast, but it went up and down like 8 times before it went all the way down. I definitely thought my shoes were tied tight enough, but then one almost flew off my foot, and I had to hold it with my toes. If the shoe fell off my foot, then it would have hit someone in the head or in the face. I wasn't risking that. Next was a circle ride, and it spun up to the left, then to the right, really high. Going up, that moment I thought it was going to be my last. One of the ladies told me to close my eyes, so I did. I got bold and took a look but almost threw up everywhere. The lady saw me and told me to turn around because if I threw up we were going to have problems. So, I turned around and closed my eyes because there was no way I was going to throw up all over. I would have seemed weak, and that top-notch beautiful girl was still around. If I would have thrown up on her, I would have just died. It’s hard to ask for digits when you’re looking at your old lunch.
Cousins: The Next Closest Thing to Siblings
For many years my family and I haven't been all that close, especially my family from my mom's side of the family. The summer of 2026 I went on a trip with a few cousins and their grandparents. My cousins and I weren't that close… we had sleepovers with my siblings and regular stuff cousins do, but never anything big. After one sleepover, my cousins Jakoby and Kira asked me if I wanted to go on their family's yearly trip, and of course I said yes because who wouldn't want to go on a trip? So, my cousins went home and the next day they were all at my door at 8 in the morning to pick me up. Then we were off. First we had to stop in Redding to pick up two more people, William and Jackson. Everyone was tired, slept, were on their phones, but we went to Costco for food on the road and at the hotel. In the store, my cousins Regina, William, Kira and I all walked around getting all the free samples there were to get, and after that our grandma got us smoothies and ice cream. I copied Kira and got a strawberry banana smoothie. Then we got in the car, made sandwiches, and got on the road again to the hotel, but on the way there the tire popped. We had to pull over for like at least half an hour on the side of the highway. After we got out of the car and stretched and played around, Kira and I sat down in front of the van and threw rocks at the road. Finally, we made it to the hotel, but before we all went into the hotel, we had to stand outside in the hot sun because the line was long. After we got our key, we went into our rooms. We got two, the girls and the boys. All of these girls, Regina, Kira, Grandma, and I went into our room, made something to eat, and got ready for the pool. I don't fully know what the boys did, but they got ready too. Then we went down to the pool, and we were going to swim, but we ended up messing around outside the pool for a bit. Kira pushed me into the 8ft part of the pool, and I touched the ground with my butt, and I thought I was drowning! Kira came to the rescue and pretended to grab me, but I think I was being dramatic and acted like I was drowning so she would be worried. Finally, the boys jumped in and asked to race, and I won one game and lost one game against Jokoby. We got tired of swimming and getting in and out of the pool to jump in, so we went over to the hot tub. We were all being kind of annoying because there were a bunch of adults in the hot tub we wanted to leave. They did. We had the place to ourselves, jumping in the hot tub and playing tag! Then we got hungry and bored, so we went inside, showered, ate, and hit the sack. As I drifted off to sleep, I thought how fun tomorrow would be at Santa Cruz.
-Marissa Cardenas
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