The Great Outdoors

Two Things

Standard

We hit the beach again yesterday. Cloudy days are the best… next to evenings.

amb221172amb221174amb221175

He looked for buried treasure and I walked up and down glancing at snowbirds. Every other license plate in the parking lot said Québec.

Here are two things that drive me crazy:

  1. People sitting nearly at the water’s edge of one of the most beautiful beaches in the world… playing games on their cellphones. REALLY?
  2. Tourists wearing shoes (flip-flops are shoes) walking on the beach. Down near the surf, where the sand is packed well enough to walk without looking like you’re falling. Sure, we all do that. The sand and the water… they’re for digging your toes into. They’re really good for buffing the callouses off your feet and let’s not discount the pure sensory pleasure of it… If you don’t want to feel that, just go to DisneyWorld and be done with it.

Beach

Standard

roseall21517

My Valentine roses have nothing whatsoever to do with the beach. But I think they’re pretty and since I didn’t have my camera last night…

Ever since we moved to Pompano Beach in 2002, I’ve been looking forward to leaving. Never ‘blooming where I’m planted’; never putting down roots of any kind here. Made few friends and don’t see them much. To my embarrassment I never even reach out to them, preferring an insulated existence. Why would I want to become good friends with people only to leave them? That’s happened before and I hate it.

The virtues of the area have made themselves known over the years… aside from a hurricane once in a while, the weather is usually wonderful. But the cost of living is so high we’d never be able to retire here, which means within the next couple of years we’ll be forced to make a move.

The beaches… are quite exquisite. I’ve always lived near the ocean and this time it’s only 10 miles due east. We went last night as the sun was setting; was able to stand at the water’s edge as it roared and look west as the orange and pink sky put on a show. The power, the sheer magnitude of it always leaves me awestruck.

One has to wonder why I’ve been trying to run from this place back to Texas… wasting years of my life looking back, just because it was my home, because of faraway friends? I miss them, but how blinkered is that?

Just when I’ve come to really appreciate the place, we’re preparing to leave. And that’s very sad indeed.

 

Anhinga

Standard

This female Anhinga could have been the ‘Totem’ bird. Took the picture from a fair distance, so it’s not exceptional… but I could identify her.

bird117lg

bird117

According to my Birds of North America its proper name is ‘Anhinga Anhinga’, which is a little strange since all the other birds have strings of unpronounceable names…