Walking on the Beach......

I went to Mayport Beach today while Sweet Girl was in class. I was a little apprehensive about doing that, since we were on the navy base, and the only place I could go WAS the beach. If the weather turned bad or I got too much sun, my only other alternative was to go sit in her car. For four hours.

In the absence of any other opportunity to exercise, I decided to spend at least a portion of my time taking a walk on the beach. I made deals with myself ..... I'm ALWAYS making deals with myself. I said if I walked for at least 20 minutes in one direction, then I could turn around and come back and have the YUMMY turkey sandwich I fixed at Sweet Girl's house this morning. And carrot sticks too. Oh boy. What a deal.


I took off walking at 1:25. One thing about walking on the beach, it's impossible to judge the distance. I walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and resisted the temptation to look at my cell phone for the time. I was afraid it was about 1:30. So I walked and walked and walked and walked and walked some more.

When I finally looked at the time, it was 2:06. Well you can't turn around at some kind of stupid time like 2:06, so I kept walking until 2:10. That meant I had been walking for 45 minutes.

It also meant that the only way to get back was to walk another 45 minutes.

I didn't know it was possible to wear blisters on the bottoms of your feet walking barefoot on the sand.

I walked so far that when I got back to my chair, I could tell it had rained a little where I had been. But not where I was. Isn't that weird?

Hubby tells me I take too many #$&! pictures of birds.

Right after I returned from my four-day walk, they came down the beach in a truck and announced they were closing the beach due to the lightning. They aren't fooling me ..... these are teenage lifeguards. Any strong wind would probably force them to close the beach. I thought, "Oh great. I guess I'll go sit in the car after all." I packed up my things, and just as I got to Sweet Girl's car, she sent me a text message that said, "I'm done." A whole hour early! What excellent timing.

When I left on my walk, I passed four or five young people, probably in their late teens or early twenties, working industriously on a sand castle. I wanted to stop and take a picture of it, but I didn't want to look like a nerd. Or give them the satisfaction. Isn't that mean?

When I came back, the sand castle was standing complete and all alone. Or so I thought. As I walked up to take a picture of the castle, a head popped up from inside it and scared the bejeezus out of me.



Her name was Kylie. Or Kylee. Or Cailie. Whatever.


She was adding sand to the interior walls, making sure they were sturdy enough. I think she had homesteading in mind.