Sunny Beaches

03/29/08

I can’t believe I grew up in Florida and never once visited a beach on the panhandle. Gulf side of course…there are none on the Georgia side…duh. I’ve seen the bright white beaches of the Gulf many times. We used to vacation at North Redington Beach with it’s shell-encrusted tan sand that fades to a blinding white further from the water’s edge. The waves are smaller, the sand is “cleaner”, and the crowds are smaller. At least where I visit on the Gulf side, that is. Been to the Keys many years ago. Nice, but still a bit crowded. Forget Clearwater Beach…way too many people for my taste. The beach at our rental condo at North Redington Beach was much less crowded, but still, there were more people there than here. “Here” is Mexico Beach, somewhere with surf and sand at the end of the road from whence we came. Sand, surf, and sanity. It’s what I have been looking forward to for quite some time.

D, Mtn. D, and I left out of northeast Georgia just after midnight. We drove all night. Well, I should say they drove all night. I slept a lot. 6 hours and 45 minutes it took us. We arrived in the time of morning between the pitch black of night and the pinkish glow of full-blown sunrise (well, it would have been pink, if not for the fog). It was not as warm as I had anticipated. It was chilly, in fact. Made me glad I did bring a jacket after all. We took a blanket for below and sleeping bag for above and spread out on the sand in front of the pounding surf. We were tired from the trip, but the waves kept on coming, tirelessly moving forward and back in its continual advance and retreat act. No sleep for them. It was hypnotic. If it weren’t so cold and so bright, I probably would have fallen asleep there on the beach. D did. Mtn. D and I didn’t. She walked down the beach and I walked across the street and got us coffee instead. Mmm…coffee with Splenda and hazelnut creamer. Heaven. Warming,too.

After the morning beach visit, we found a café for a little breakfast, but not until after leaving the office of Pristine Properties, the rental agency for the little rental house on the beach. Got the keys, ate our omelettes, and then headed to our home away from it all. This house is something else. From the outside, it looks like an ordinary cinder-block house built in Florida. Maybe it needed a little bit of care on the exterior, a little paint, maybe a bit of wood replacement as well, but it looked welcoming...much more welcoming that a hotel would have been. But the interior was better than the pictures on the ‘net. Wood paneling (not the cheap thin paneling you find in a trailer, but this beautiful cedar wood) on every wall. I swear, if I ever had more money than I knew what to do with, I would build a house and make the interior walls look like this place. I love it. Three bedrooms, two baths, neat seaside décor, and homey feeling. Nice place to hang for a few days. And a nice place to crash too, as we found out when we finally wound down enough to lie down. Barbecue and beers made for an early evening. Slept like the dead, I did.

Woke up this morning to some brewed coffee and a mostly quiet house. Got my coffee fix and found myself wanting to walk the beach. I went looking for shells and whatever semblance of dead aquatic life the water was spitting up. There were seashells everywhere. I was looking for the beautiful ones; the ones you never seem to find whole and all there. The one-piece ones with spiral staircases and spinnerets. The ones that are outnumbered by the perfect bi-valved “scallop” or “hinged” ones. There are plenty of pretty ones, but they were all broken. I found plenty of pretty, un-damaged shells (the hinged kind), a sand dollar and some driftwood. A lady walking by showed me the sand dollars and starfish she had found. More death from the deep. I got to thinking about trying to find the “perfect ones”, which then prompted me to start thinking to myself, “Mmm…all the perfect ones are broken”. I may have said “pretty ones”, but anyway, it is something to write about later, I’m sure…

It is relaxing here. Got some playlist music playing from my MP3 player, being piped through stereo speakers. Right now, Bob Marley is telling me to “Lively Up Yourself”. I just got back from a bike ride by myself along the back alley streets that run parallel to the main road that sits between the house and the beach. You can go just about anywhere you want taking those back streets. They take you to the same places that the main road will take you. You just have a different view and less traffic, that’s all. D is lazing in the sun (under a beach umbrella), catching up on some much missed sleep. Mtn. D and the Other Three (G, B, and C) are now biking somewhere. I’m glad we brought the bikes. They are fun and they make me exercise as well.

Oh yeah. Got to see some poor sap fail his sobriety test, get handcuffed and put in the K-9 vehicle, get his van rifled through by Mexico Beach’s finest, and then watch his van get towed away. I knew he was going to fail when I saw him stumble on the “walk the line” test. Going to jail. He didn’t pass GO or collect his $200. All this happened on the road right in front of our little house. Quite entertaining, it was.

Tomorrow, we plan on going to Cape San Blas and bike some more, but first, take a 4 hour kayak tour of god-knows-what in the waters surrounding. Maybe get a round of “Row Your Boat” going…in a six part round. We will be rowing and all that. I think I might make my goal for my weight loss program. I am eating more than normal this weekend, but I’m also exercising more than normal too. I hope I make my goal. I think I might. 4 hours in a kayak in the ocean might make that happen. But, more than likely, my upper body muscles may bulk up and negate any weight loss.

I am glad I came. Even though it is just me as the lone male in a house full of women. I’m just wasting time. It isn’t a party-time weekend. It is a “get away from it” weekend. It feels good to do that for a change. Just take a little bit of time to get away from my troubles, away from my hurts and everyday tedium, away from my normal life. My cell phone is here, but nowhere in sight. The television is not trying to sell me “The Clapper”. The ocean is a mere 100 yards away. I can hear the surf. The sun will be setting in a few hours. I think I might go back and see what shells have been thrown up on the shore before that. I don’t think I will find the perfectly complete and whole one, but I’m going to look anyway.

I might just find one.