Early Morning Beach Walk

The second day of our Cocoa Beach fun started way earlier than I normally enjoy.  We were sleeping on a sleeper sofa and sleeper sofas are like bad oatmeal-lumpy and and unpleasant.  So when I woke up at 6 am, I decided getting up was better than sleeping some more.  In this particular case that worked out wonderfully because it got me out on the beach which is always a wonderful thing.  Since we were there so early, we practically had the beach to ourselves. 

 Just a few other people and the birds.

There was the ocean, of course, and we soaked that up as much as we could.

Mostly, we watched the birds though.  They seemed to enjoy the rising sun as much as we did.

 I was very excited when I spotted one that was eating, because that meant it might stand still long enough to get some decent shots of it.

I was so excited about witnessing this creature having its breakfast until I walked over and saw that the bird had plucked the eyeball out of a fish.  Nothing else.  Just the eyeball.  At which point I said, "ewwww...nature can be so gross sometimes" while pretending to dry heave.  Nathan laughed and said, "yep", and I know he was thinking that is what makes nature so cool to him sometimes.  I will spare you the picture of the eyeless fish because even though it was gross, I still thought it was interesting enough to capture with my camera.

I'll email Nathan the fish picture and since I would like to remember this beach morning walk in a "this is my happy place" kind of way, I'll end on this note:

 Ahhhh, much better!  Living the life in beautiful beach filled Florida!

Cocoa Beach and Good Friends

I had the chance not once, but twice this past week to share with family members of ours how great of friends we have made since living this lifestyle.  I was so fanatical in my sharing with one of them that I think I may have scared them a bit.  It's hard not to be really passionate when trying to explain how special of a crowd we have been lucky enough to hang out with the past few years though.

We have said time and time again what exceptional people the pickleball crowd in particular are. This past week was a great example of that.  Rich and Donna invited us to their beach condo.  I can honestly say we have never had friends invite us along on their vacation to stay in their condo with them, let alone a beach one!  I am so grateful to them!

We had to squeeze this trip in around my work schedule so we only had a few days to visit, but we made those days as fun filled as possible.  We were also spoiled rotten by Rich and Donna who definitely have the gift of being great hosts.  I do not have this gift, so I will have to bake extra goodies when they come to stay with us to make up for it!  First thing we got to tour the facilities at the place where there condo is at, and we were very impressed with it.

We then headed out to do a bit of sight seeing.  We have never actually visited Cocoa Beach so it was neat to visit some place new in Florida.  There was the typical touristy Florida beach stuff of course, but they took us to some non-touristy unique spots.  We stopped at Manatee park where they have been able to see manatees and dolphins in their previous visits.  Sadly, we did not encounter any wildlife but the park was really pretty so we still enjoyed the stop.

We then visited the pier there, which Donna already wrote about so I'll just send you to her blog Florida Picklers.  The first thing I saw there was this cool 3-D mural on the side of this building.

We stopped to catch a few waves, with the ladies trying out the surfboard first.

Then on to the pier, where we visited a shop and I found a pair of flip flop earrings that I loved (and bought).

We saw some fishing being done, birds flying around, lots of beach activity and real surfing in the water.

I thought the pier itself was really neat.

Donna had a great idea for a group shot, taking a picture of our reflections in the water.  Love this!

We also managed to squeeze in dinner at an Italian restaurant they have eaten at before.  Nathan was able to try one of their small stombolis.  Yes, folks, that is their small size!  The food there was very good!

After all of that, we still were not done with our day.  We took our drinks outside and lounged by the pool and chatted for a bit.  Once we digested enough of our dinner we headed over to the tennis courts and chalked off lines for some pickleball.  It was very windy and we had fun even with the frustration of not knowing at all where they ball would go after we hit it.  I didn't realize until the next day how hard I had really played because the wind really kept me cooled off.  After so much fun, we headed to bed for the night gearing up for another fun day the next day. 

Dolphin Fun

 I just realized while catching up on reading blogs, that I never came back and posted the dolphin pictures.  I guess with all of my new computer fun and a visit from Aric, it completely left my mind to blog.  The completely leaving my mind seems to be happening more and more lately but that's a story for another day.  Back to the dolphins.  When we got to the pier, I could hear there was some hype over something in the water.  You can never tell just what that might mean with the ocean.  So it was a happy surprise to see that it was dolphins that were visiting.

This is one of those times that I'm so glad I am the weirdo that brings her big camera to the beach with her.  While everyone else was using their phones to get pictures, I got some decent shots with a real camera.

It was interesting to watch dolphins here vs somewhere like Sea World.  They were just doing their thing being dolphins instead of doing tricks to get treats.  Pretty cool.  The only downside is they didn't surface much so we couldn't see them that well.  Again, they were just being dolphins and weren't worried about us in the least so that is understandable.  Then someone went to wash their fish at the fish cleaning station and the water trickled down below.  

 

The dolphins seemed to love this and they fought to get underneath the water from that point on.  This is where the real life dolphin show became a blast for us humans that happened to be there.

 It turned this into one of my best beach days ever.

We stood there for a very long time.  I snapped hundreds of pictures.  I murmured things like this is so cool, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, this is awesome! over and over.  I told Nathan later that it was right up there with whale watching because we were so close to them.  He smiled at me in that way he does sometimes like he is amused at my simple mindedness. 

 That's ok.  He didn't read Island of the Blue Dolphins 433 times as a child like I did.  And he laughed non-stop at a movie recently that I am pretty sure was made for ten year old boys.  So we're even! 

 It was way awesome.  Just ask the dolphins!

The Pier at Fort DeSoto

After seeing the inside of the fort, we decided to go up on top of it and walk around.  We wanted to get a better look at what else was at the park.  We saw a nice beach.  Excellent!

Then we look the other way and see a fishing pier and more beach.  Even better!

Let's zoom in here and get a closer look:

Yup, that's where we want to head next!  We take the short walk over there.  We watch the fisherpeople fishing.  We watch the birds and note how fearless of humans they are here.

And then the truly magical moment happened:

I saved the best for last-dolphins!  I will tell you more about them tomorrow!

Living the life in Florida!

The Birds at Myrtle Beach State Park

I couldn't share the birds at one State Park and not share the birds at the other.  So here are the birds from Myrtle Beach State Park.  Except most of the birds there were different than what we saw at Huntington.

I did capture this cutie pie having a joyful time chasing the birds on the beach:

The Birds at Huntington Beach

When we visited Myrtle Beach State Park, we asked about Huntington and the lady who worked there said, "We have a fishing pier and they have alligators".  While we didn't see alligators, we did see a lot of other animals including birds.

 

I love watching birds on the beach.  They just go hand in hand to me.

 When we visited the store here, I was chatting with an employee.  We talked about workamping and what went along with it.  She told me her two most interesting things to date were when the alligators were mating and the males went in the campground area and did not want to leave causing quite the stir and an incident involving a snake. 

 I almost don't want to share the snake one, because it might stick in my mind and I might not want to stay here after all.

Ok, I guess I'll share it.  A young man was looking for turtle shells and he came across a water moccasin instead, landing him a nice bite from the snake.  By the time he made it to her, his arm was turning black.  Can't say I would want to encounter either one of those things, but I still do love interacting with animals in nature.

 

I am really going to miss this when we leave here!

Huntington Beach State Park

Across the street from Brookgreen Gardens is the Huntington Beach State Park.  We had visited one state park this week so I didn't expect this to be much different.  As soon as we walked out on the beach area though, I saw it was very different.

 I said, ahhhhh....this is more like it.

Notice the lack of tall commercial buildings here?  It makes all the difference in the world to me.  Here I can simply focus on nature.  I can focus on the huge fluffy clouds that so nicely offset the ocean below.

We walked and walked here, snapping pictures along the way.

If we make it back to Myrtle Beach, this is where we want to stay!  They have a full service campground that was quite nice.  They have a store and they offer wi-fi.  That and the beach is all we need!

 Living the life in NC!

Myrtle Beach State Park~The Boardwalk

When we were in OBX this summer, one question I was asked over and over again on the phone was, "is there a boardwalk there?".  There wasn't.  There is one here in Myrtle Beach though.  We haven't visited it yet so I can't share what I think of it.  I can say that I've loved all of the boardwalks I have visited so far so I am guessing I will love the one here too.

In the meantime, we enjoyed the boardwalk at the State Park.  It connects the park areas to the beach and connects the access points to the beach to each other.  

There is just something about boardwalks that scream summer to me.  I know, it isn't summer...but it still feels like summer here. 

And the view is just gorgeous from here!  I'm content to just hang here for a bit!  Can you blame me?

Living the life in South Carolina!