A little racism and naked men on bikes…protesting something

Oh, how could I forget about this past Saturday? It was a delicious fiasco. We had a full social calendar that day, 2 parties, back to back, one very cute pink party locally, and a 1st birthday party an hour away in West Seattle.

This one was at Lincoln Park, a beautiful park off the Puget Sound, right next to the Vashon Ferry. We’ve always heard about it, but have never been, and were quite excited to go. Unfortunately, being as it is 135-acre park, and two parking lots, it took awhile just to find parking, and then the great trek across to where the party was at, between the restrooms and playground. There are several of those as we soon discovered as we walked up and down trails, across playing fields, searching every covered picnic area. As we were coming around the bend, with a birthday present in hand, a lady walking her dog asked if we were going to the picnic. “No, a birthday party” I answered, having no idea what she was talking about.

Ahhh, the next covered area revealed a plethora of black people bbq’ing. Sigh, just because we are a black family carrying a gift, why assume we are joining that group? If I had known what she was talking about earlier, I would have retorted “Actually we are looking for a group of white people. Seen any?” That irritated me for the next few minutes, as I thought about more and more about it, which was a nice distraction from walking across a very hilly park in red ballet flats, dragging along a four-year old who keeps insisting his legs are hurting.

I swear, what was 3 hours later, I read the directions again, mentioning (again) to head towards the water. My husband swears I neglected that part, as we head down some crazy hill-trail toward the beach. That brought another heated discussion up, since he says the host told him where to go, and he knows exactly where he is going, while I protest the children can go on no further without food and water. We did end up by the salt-water heated pool, where restrooms and lots of people were.

As we are heading down the sidewalk to the restrooms, a group of bikers are honking their horns and biking slowly. They have green signs on the front of their bikes, and as I strain to read the signs, my brain has not caught up to what I realize what I’m staring at….a bush of hair and a penis. THEY ARE QUITE NAKED. And because I’m behind my husband with 2 kids and he’s ahead with the oldest, they’ve already seen, processed, and promptly covered eyes, while I’m still thinking THEY ARE QUITE NAKED. Wait, what did the signs say, oh crap, THEY ARE QUITE NAKED. The little one didn’t notice, but when I took the boys to the bathroom, the oldest asked why. I’m not uncomfortable talking about nakedness, I just thought that on a Saturday is the worst day to bike down a beach naked, in front of kids. I don’t even know what they were protesting, so sorry yos, defeated the whole purpose.

So, after that, we keep walking down the beach towards the ferry, and just when we gave up hope, we came across our party. And who was taking a water break right next to them were the bike riders, mercifully wearing speedos. I wanted to walk up in righteous indignation, but I was so tired and thirsty, I just wanted to sit and rub my blisters.

And what was the best joke of all? We go up the hill right behind the party, to the parking lot, right next to our car. Good times, good times.