Beach Days Vary

Sunday December 28 and Monday December 29, 2014
Oscar Scherer State Park
Osprey Florida

 

 

SUNDAY

Wouldn’t you know it, the day AFTER Carrie leaves is the most glorious beach day so far.  Well weather wise anyway.  The sun is bright, the water is sparkling and the troops have arrived.   Good grief!   Where did all these people come from?  I guess they all have the week between Christmas and New Year’s off so here they are.

 

 

 

 

As I’m scoping out ALL the people on the beach I catch sight of the draw bridge going up on the road we take onto the island.  I’ll bet the guy in orange thought it was about him.  LOL

 

It’s 80 degrees outside.  So wonderfully warm.  We plop down in our chairs and enjoy it until we are hot enough that it’s time for a swim.  Now the water is not 80 degrees but it is swimable.

In I go

 

Come on in, the water’s fine I say with a wave.

 

Of course since I’m in the water first  David can take pictures of me.  I get this one of him as he gets out to prove that he too braved the gulf at the end of December in 2014.

 

 

 

 

SO many people encourages us to take a long walk down the beach toward the Casey Key residential area.  The crowds eventually thin out.  Ahhhhhhh

 

 

 

The folks who live down here  have some lovely gulf front houses that’s for sure.  David takes some pictures of his favorite.  Nice but no thanks.  The first thing I think of is having to clean it.  I know, if you have THAT much money you hire a maid but somehow I just can’t imagine having someone else clean up my dirt.

 

 

 

 

 

We come upon what look like the bottoms of wooden posts all along the edge of the water.  They don’t seem to have been connected to anything and clearly each cement, or whatever it is, square has the bottoms of a wooden post on either side.   Anyone know what these are?   A flock of willets is busy all around them.  

 

 

 

Actually they aren’t ALL busy.

 

 

 

The public beach doesn’t allow dogs but this pair lives down here somewhere I think.  They come bounding toward me followed by their owner who says how happy they are to be “back”.  We don’t chat since the boys are on a tear.  They are clearly having a glorious time.  Aren’t we all?

 

 

We can see them in the distance all huddled near the parking lot entrances.  They get closer and closer and then we have arrived back at the masses after over 11K steps. I forget to see how many miles this is we’ve walked down and back.

 

 

We saw three young women creating a sand pile as we walked down the beach.  Coming back we find it is a great looking snow/sand woman.  Very creative and perfect for those who have escaped, if only for a week,  what looks like it may be a snowy winter.

 

 

 

MONDAY

Monday is another bright sunny day as you can see from our pancakes outside picture.   Where was all this sun while Carrie was here?   NOT fair.

 

 

 

We spend the day mostly cleaning and straightening up so we don’t head over to the beach until late.  We  go for sunset.  We haven’t seen a sunset over the gulf yet.  Usually we go to the beach early in the day and leave in time for dinner.  Sunset these days is right around dinner time for us.

We are unaware of how different the weather is outside of the campground.  We don’t see the soup thick fog until we are leaving the campground.   What a surprise.

 

 

 

David, ever the optimist, says “well it might be different at the beach”.   That makes me double over with laughter at the idea that the fog could be coming from anywhere other than the water.  But he wants to go see.    This is what we find.  what a difference a day makes.

 

 

People are still in the water, still hunting shells.  But they fade quickly into the fog if they are more than 50 yards away.

 

 

 

 

We are in place to see the sun set and looking right at it when it goes down at 5:44 EST.   There it goes.

 

 

We are in the front row for sunset.  Not much color –

 

We’ll try again.   For now it’s back home for dinner and some more Mexican Train.