Well, Florida winter that is, when the temperatures range from the 60s to the 70s in the course of the day. It would have been a crime not to get outside and enjoy the weather today, especially since it has taken longer than normal to get here. Sandhill cranes walked with me this morning. And I decided that it would have been a perfect day for the wind surfers to have been enjoying the breeze on Sunset Beach, but the breeze showed up even if the windsurfers didn’t. Lots of gulls though. And I never head south without a stop to see if the eagles might be hanging around the nest yet, and yes, I got to see an eagle for the first time this season. There is more of this weather on the horizon too. Be still my heart.
Now that I’m home I can say it was a good trip. But maybe I should have given a second thought to a nearly 10 hour drive followed immediately with having to set up the camper. Setting up while trying to beat the sunset. We knew ahead of time that the weather would be good for one day, and then followed by two days of rain, but I didn’t think about cancelling. Reality hit after a day of taking photos that first day, and we again tried to beat the sunset while taking the camper back down that night. And another nearly 10 hour drive home the next day. On the way home I wondered if this was all too much for me, if maybe this camping thing had run it’s course for me. But I’m rested now and I have to think I’m not done yet. There are still places to go, things to see, people to meet…
We also saw a red door, a red barn, and even a redneck. Nice day of zooming through Tallulah Gorge state park, Black Rock Mountain state park, and Vogel state park in Georgia. Opting to see the easily accessible photo ops because with nothing but rain called for on our next and last two days we decided to pack up the camper dry and then head home today. It was a very nice day, just a shorter trip than expected.
I had heard that the sunset can be especially nice after a storm has rolled through, which is what happened yesterday. It was nearly 6:30 when I glanced up and noticed that the clouds had broken up, which left a half hour until sunset. I hadn’t been to Hudson Beach for a while, and at 3 miles from my house I can be there in 10 minutes, I should probably go there more often. The sky was already streaked with reds, but the houses across the inlet looked so perfect in the light that the feature photo is the first picture I took when I got there. That lovely light doesn’t last long. It was a beautiful night.
Day one of early voting in Florida found me in a socially distanced line waiting to vote, which is all I have to say about this election. The first election that I actually remember was the 1956 election. I was turning eight, and horrified to realize that Eisenhower might not continue to be president. Since I thought life was just perfect as it was I worried that he wouldn’t be re-elected. Or they could elect my daddy, I thought that would be a dandy idea also. Next up was the 1960 election of JFK, a big deal in MA of course, so that left a lasting impression. But with a voting age of 21, and due to my July birthday, the first election I was able to vote in was the 1972 election. I was living in San Diego at the time, so waiting for my husband to get home from work meant that Nixon had already been declared the winner before I went out and voted with my home state, the only state to go for McGovern.
To be honest I had to look up a list of the presidential elections after that to remind myself who ran, who was elected, and who I voted for. I’m only batting 500, but I actually thought it was worse than that, and for me most of those elections came and went without a lot of emotion on my part. Probably the most memorable one was the 2000 Bush/Gore election, which isn’t surprising. But it so happened that a friend of the family was on the Bush election team, which is probably why my two oldest grandkids were very aware of the election and excited about it. We walked to the polls to vote that morning, the kids rode their new scooters and we were going to McDonald’s for breakfast afterwards. The line was just long enough for it to seem like an event, but not so long that the kids got bored. They were allowed into the polling booth with me and they were given their own “I voted” stickers. For this grandmother it was the perfect educational moment, I just loved everything about that day, until the vote count. It was educational in an entirely unexpected way when my grandson asked me several weeks later, “Hey Mimi, did they ever figure out who won that election?”
The story of this election is still to be written… God bless America…
Staying home alone means you can do whatever you want to do, all day long, day after day. Even if you find yourself caught up in a show on Apple TV and basically watch all day long it’s okay, because living alone means there is no one there to object, or tell you that you need to do something, anything, else. I may live alone, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t hear a voice telling me to go do something else, but it’s the voice in my head, and it can be relentless. Do I listen to it? No, not usually, unless it tells me to go bake something, but then after I’ve baked something it tells me not to eat it, so that’s no fun. Living alone has its perks, especially when that voice in my head tells me I’m okay, good even. But it’s not so free with the compliments, it’s much better at ‘constructive’ criticism.
A Snowbird's Life Through the Lens 