#1,758 Cruisin the Coast + Double Birthday.

We left at lunch for the weekend that Ben plans for and dreams about all year long—Cruisin’ the Coast. It’s like… The 2nd biggest car show in America. I think. We’ve gone every year and last year’s might never be topped because the weather was perfect and we found the best spot to park and watch, but I digress.

For a little while, until we met up with his family and did a fruit basket turnover, I drove caboose in the Pontiac (that my grandfather bought new, then my daddy drove it in high school, then uncle Danny drove it in high school, then my daddy got again in the 90s, that he’s now passed on to Ben), while Ben towed the pickup with the Tahoe. This made him love me more than he ever has, to see me behind the wheel of the family heirloom land yacht.

When we got to Sam and Lyn’s house on the coast, Tom, Allison and the kids had already beat us and so all the Napier brothers were together and busy terrorizing our recently teenaged nephew, Jared, in no time.

Since today is actually Tom and Allison’s baby boy Preston’s first birthday, and Sam’s is next week, we had a little joint birthday party with a HUGE meal (I mean, I think we can even go so far as to call it a feast) and one of Ben’s mama’s famous birthday cakes (4 layers of dark chocolate cake with a rich, chocolate icing and peanut butter M&Ms caked onto the outside):

Uncle Sam and the birthday boy blew out their candles together:

And then we got in the Pontiac and Chevy and headed for the beach to go cruising.

People are more serious about their weeklong tailgate on highway 90 than you might even see in The Grove. These are SERIOUS car people.

And Big Ben is in his happiest place.