Hidden Hurricane Damage, a Rant and a Reward

Tuesday & Wednesday                                                                                  Most Recent Posts:
November 29 & 30, 2016                                                               What to Do When It’s Windy?  Go Hiking?
Gamble Rogers State Recreation Area                                            Flagler Beach-Recovering From Matthew
Flagler Beach Florida

 

TUESDAY

Today is another windy day so we have non kayak, non beach plans. Of course I do go out for sunrise and a walk on the beach. There is quite a halo around the sun this morning.

 

 

 

Once the sun breaks through, the waves pick up.

 

 

After a lovely start to the day, I have a morning fight with Blogger over whether it will publish my Live Writer post or not. Yesterday, I did everything just as always in creating the post but this morning when I hit publish, Blogger thinks about it and then sends the same 404 error I had last month that caused me to pull my hair out.

After trying all the same “fixes” including, checking each picture, posting parts of the blog separately and changing the title, I attempt to recreate the post from scratch in Blogger’s interface.

What a joke. Why do I do this? I know better. Their program is SO limited. It took forever and when I published it, it came up with nearly a page of blank space between several of the paragraphs. We look at the HTML code and it is a mess. I have NO MORE PATIENCE so I just delete the Blogger attempt and as we are leaving to go do something David wants to do, I hit the publish button on Live Writer in  a “SO THERE YOU JERK” move and of course it publishes the same post it would not publish hours ago. 404 Error has disappeared.

Moral of the story:
If Live Writer and Blogger come to a another show down where Blogger will not publish my Live Writer post, I will do nothing, wait 5 hours and try again. If that doesn’t work, I will throw in the towel and consider the previous post the end of the blog. Finished! Enough is enough! Whew, thanks for letting me get that rant off my chest.

Now on to what did David want to do. Can’t you guess??

Remember our trip to Bing’s Landing and the neat Plantation Archeological Exhibit? Remember that restaurant? Captains BBQ? Well today’s the day.

We can smell the BBQ when we get out of the car. They are using a great old smoker directly outside the restaurant.

 

We are amazed that we have the place to ourselves. We can dine inside or out.

 

Well sort of out. The deck overlooks the water but is screened against bugs of which luckily there are few in winter.

 

 

Yes it’s him eating again, this time BBQ, a beer and a smile on his face.

 

 

 

After our late lunch/dinner, I want to go on up A1A for a mile to Washington Oaks State park. I don’t want to go into the park itself. We don’t have time to do it justice and we were there on our last trip to the area.

But I do want to walk out on their beach with the Giant Coquina stones. There is nothing quite like the beach at Washington Oaks but you’ll have to look at the post from our previous visit to see it since apparently there has been enough damage to close the beach.

Boy am I disappointed. What could the hurricane have done to the rocks? Or is it just damage to the boardwalk which could be closed with access still allowed to the beach? Or perhaps the parking lot has been destroyed. I’m willing to walk in if you will just let me. DARN!

 

 

Our last stop of the day is balm for the blogger/Live Writer blues and the disappointment over the Washington Oaks Beach. I have a coupon for a free QUART of Bruster’s ice cream and the store in Palm Coast has made Jamaica Me Crazy at my request. Now how is that for customer service? They even put m y name on it.

 

On the drive back through downtown Flagler Beach, I have a chance to take pictures of the kites that are always flying near the pier. These are HUGE kites and there are many differnet ones so you never know what you will see.

 

 

WEDNESDAY

Today is our last day here at Gamble Rogers and the wind has died down enough that we can spend the entire day on the beach and we do.

It starts with sunrise.

 

Winnona peaks over the dune at dawn.

 

Here’s what she’s looking at.

 

 

Later we walk down this beach for the last time. This is my favorite picture of the day.

 

 

It turns out to be a wonderful last day on the beach.  Look at those BLUE skies.

 

Not sure what it is about waves that I can watch them for hours.

 

Every one, every group, is so different. So beautiful. The power and the majesty.

 

And yet somehow the broad deserted beach, the blue skies and wonderful clouds make it a place of tranquility and calm for me. Almost meditative. So healing.  I can relax and let all  the problems of “real life” drift away.

 

 

After dinner, we finish our day with a walk over to the boat launch for our last sunset from this viewpoint.

I wonder if I would spend the entire winter here if they would let me. Or would it ultimately be too cold?  I know it’s beautiful now and it has been a wonderful two weeks. Usually after a two week stay, I am ready to move on, but not in this case. 

Of course, realistically, it’s extremely difficult to book 2 weeks here.  To do that more than once is pretty impossible.  I tried this year but no dice.   So we’ll have to move on.  I’m really going to miss it.   Next stop is to see the Manatee.