But our thoughts are still on the beach.
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Ormond Beach Day 3
Our third day began without any alarm, with any reminder that we had to get up at any particular hour at all. Yesterday, we received a message from our Vrbo host "Hope all is well and enjoy your weekend!" to which I replied, "Everything is going great. We’re being very lazy, which was the whole idea." Since we got up yesterday for the sunrise, I guess that wasn't really all that accurate. Today, though, it was. No alarm. No commitments. So we weren't all out of bed until after nine.
After a breakfast of K's lovely pancakes, we went for walk on the beach, heading south toward the Daytona area for a change. Daytona Beach was in the news this morning for four separate shooting incidents over the weekend. Apparently, it's filled with college students partying for spring break, but here we are, just fifteen miles south, and there's no one around and not a hint of any kind of violence.
At least, not that type of violence. We watched a sea bird of some sort -- here my landlubber nature shows specularly -- catch a fish of some sort and fly about above us for a while. It seemed unable to decide what exactly to do, to land on the beach or to strafe the water's surface.
And just a bit further down the beach, a fisherman who'd caught a bonnet-head shark, itself quite the predator. It uses it's bonnet-shaped head to detect changes in electrical charge as it swims along the ocean floor. When it detects a change, it attacks that spot in the hopes of finding a blue crab or some mollusk or other.
All the while, more potential violence just off the shore: squadron after squadron of pelicans (that's what a group of them in flight is actually called -- what a perfect name) flew along the coast, not seemingly hunting (for they none ever dove), but also not seemingly uninterested in what was going on below them. Perhaps that's for the best: each time they dive, they do more damage to their vision until they eventually become completely blind. I suppose at that point, they starve. The cruelty of the natural world.
It gets me wondering how relatively violent we are as a species compared to other species. We like to think of life in the twenty-first as relatively calm, peaceful even, and it is for most of in the developed world. But the violence we do to each other in other parts of the world, and the violence we do to the Earth itself and most species, makes us unquestionably the most dangerous species on the planet. We are, after all, capable of all but destroying life on the whole planet in a a number of ways. Sure, we don't often end up violently devoured by some superior species, but we do more than enough violence to each other to make up for that.
But we can play cards.
Ormond Beach Day 2
"It's probably the most convenient time of year to catch a sunrise," K argued as she began her argument last night that we should get up early enough to watch the sunrise over the ocean. With it so close to daylight savings time switch, the sun rises at a very reasonable 7:30. It took surprisingly little convincing, so at 6:50, we were all up and heading to the beach.
We weren't the only ones. An older gentleman -- "older" probably meaning my age by now or just a touch older; I keep forgetting I'm in my fifties now -- was out setting up his fishing gear, and a few others were venturing out, coffee cups in head, to watch the sunrise.
I was hoping the large cloud mass on the horizon would make for a more beautiful sunrise than it actually did. Still, having the four of us there made it a memorable way to begin our first day here at Ormond Beach, which is only a 1.5-ish hour drive from UF, where L is studying.
After a half hour on the beach, we returned from a solid breakfast of bacon and eggs with biscuits before all decided that 9:00 am is a perfect time for a late-morning nap. We've all been sleep-deprived over the last few weeks, and since we had absolutely nothing planned for the day except some time on the beach, we all trundled back to our bed
In the afternoon, the kids took another nap (we did come here, after all, to relax) while K and I went on a walk.
Ormond Beach Day 1
We've come down to Florida to spend a couple of days on the beach with L. In some miracle of timing, all three of us connected to or involved in education have spring break the same week. So we arrived today and went straight to the beach after dinner.
St. Augustine 2024 Day 1
Morning
The shells on the beach just at the edge of the surf were visible for only a few moments before the white bubbles and turbulence hid them again.
In the brief time I could clearly see them in the shallow water, it was obvious most of the shells were only fragments, often smaller than the smallest coins, slivers well on their way to becoming grains of sand. Every now and then, a shard would catch my eye, and I would think, “I might try to grab that one” just before incoming wave hid them once again.
By then it was too late: once the water cleared up, the tide would have tkane the shard so far away from its original position that finding it was all but impossible. Another might catch my eye, but then the process would simply repeat itself.
To get a shell required calm and patience followed by a paradoxical ability to move quickly when needed. Hesitation meant the loss of the moment. In some ways, that’s a metaphor for live in general for many people. Everything is about getting the right moment, and when that fails, increased stress is the outcome.
Yet the older I get, the more I realize the error in living like that and the unnecessary stress it causes. Yes, I might not get that exact shell that I wanted, but there were plenty of other shells that were just as lovely, often more so.
Evening
In the evening, after we'd spent a few hours back at the Airbnb, after we'd spent some time downtown and had dinner, we headed back to the beach.
I took a few pictures:
and the Boy took a few pictures:
A short walk to end a lovely day.
And we got home, and I saw the fantastic news from the Tour de France: Mark Cavendish got his record-breaking 35th stage win, assuring him the historic title "The Greatest Sprinter of All Time!"
Almost as enjoyable as watching the win itself was seeing the other riders' reaction to the amazing win.
Previous First Day
Isle of Palms
Beaufort Day 5
The Boy finally found his shark teeth. We went back to the beach famed for its shark teeth and within seconds, he'd found his first. It wasn't his last.
"Once I found one, I was in my prime!" he declared shortly before asking, "Daddy, what does it mean to be 'in my prime'?"
"I love when you use words you don't really know!" I laughed.
"What?! It was on Cupcake and Dino. I'm just not sure what it means."
I explained. It pleased him that he'd used it correctly.
Beaufort Day 3
Today we headed back to Hunting Island State Park. It was in part because of something K wanted to do: there is a long trail through a coastal forest by a lagoon that leads to a bridge to a small island, and K, always the hiker, wanted to make the journey there and back. It wasn't that long -- about two and a half miles one way, but it's enough to get some folks fussing if they don't really want to participate. However, the potential fussers were sold on the simple idea that it would lead to more beach time.
It also led to something that someone had asked about before we set out on the hike ("Is that the way to the boneyard?" Boneyard? What are you talking about?) but we'd never heard of. A virtual forest of driftwood -- whole trees half-sunken in the sand, bleached by the sun, surrounded by rippled, hard-packed sand.
It was the perfect place for a series of portraits.
Beaufort Day 1
The card reader I brought is broken. How to get the photos downloaded? Connect the camera to the phone, download the images to the phone, and edit them on the phone.
Huntington Beach 2017
We put it off several times: once, because someone was sick; a second time, because the timing was no longer convenient. Did we put it off a third time? I can't remember. But this weekend has been a long time in the making. We were originally going to spend last Labor Day weekend at Huntington Beach, but we ended up spending Memorial Day -- that seems appropriate, timing-wise, as they two three-day weekends bookend the school year.
We first went about six years ago.
We fell in love immediately. We went back again at some point, but none of us can remember when exactly. It was pre-E, for sure, but that's about all we can remember. Perhaps the link above is to our second visit? it all gets smeared in the memory. I reread the entry and find this:
Her first beach experience, some two years ago, was moderately traumatic for her. The sound of the waves terrified her, and the waves were forever chasing her form the water’s edge when she finally got the nerve to approach.
This year was different.
That first time at the ocean was at Edisto, so this must be have been our first time at Huntington. Still, it's only a year before the Boy's birth: when did we go again, pre-E? Again, smeared it the memory.
So I want to set about to to write down all the details of this experience I can remember, knowing that if I don't, I won't remember it. But I set out doing so with the understanding that I will only pick and choose, letting the pictures do the rest.
The first day we arrived and, after setting up camp, headed out to the beach. The Girl took her boogie board out to test the waves; the Boy, after a few minutes, turned to the gigantic sand box that lay all around him. Then they switched. That pretty much sums up the entire weekend: playing in the sand, playing in the waves. After all, what else can you do at the beach?
But there were the subtle changes. L, no longer afraid of the water, gradually found the courage to go out with me a little further than before, looking for more boggie-board-able waves. The Boy was at first reticent to go far beyond the last little crests and bubbles of waves that had been churning inland for some tens of feet. He finally found the courage, with a little help from K and me, to go out further, and to require less of a reassuring hand while doing so.
Day two started at Brookgreen Gardens. "We've been here three times now -- we have to go," declared K. It is famous for its sculptures, a fact interested me and bored L -- until she started seeing statues from Greek mythology, her current obsession thanks to the Percy Jackson series.
The final day -- another morning on the beach.
A perfect weekend, over all.