Leaving the Beach Behind
By John W. Vander Velden
We had a long drive ahead of us that Sunday morning. It might have seemed sensible to have slept in just a little that day. But I found myself at the water’s edge before the sun’s rising. You might think, especially since we saw four, that it was lighthouses that brought us south, and seeing the light at Pensacola was on my mental to do list. But the real draw was the water, the wind and waves, the roar that only comes from the ocean…OK it was the gulf. It is something that has drawn me back since the first time my parents took me to the beach at St. Augustine. Maybe it was what caused my father and mother to load us up in the 59 Chevy and drive the hours it took from our farm near Alachua to reach the shore. Water was in their history, and they put it in mine.
It may seem that I have been to the ocean many times. But thirteen trips to the sea or gulf shore spread over my years averages to only once out of five years We are fortunate to live near the “Third Coast” of Michigan. We have gone there countless times. But there is something different in the sea. Something more than the saltiness of the water. Something powerful…grand…but most of all infinite about the ocean. I know it is not limitless. I know that shores around the world line its fringes. But maybe that’s part of it. The part we cannot see but know exists. That in its way the ocean connects us to others. All I know, it draws me.
For me it is not enough to sit on our balcony and absorb the magnificence, to feel the sea air on my cheeks, to hear the rumble of breakers on the shore. No, I have to get close… me and the sea…to step in the water…to feel the power of the surf…to make the contact intimate.
That morning was my one last chance…and I took it.
There are less people on the beach in the early morning. The man setting up the umbrellas all blue for the hotel guests to enjoy. We didn’t take the time. Maybe next time we will have a few more days and will relax on the shore as we watch the ever changing surf, the tides coming or going. It is always doing one or the other. Watch the tiny sanderlings race the water’s advance. See the pelicans dive into water. Perhaps a dolphin might swim by visible beyond the swells. Perhaps. But on this morning I met a man from Germany that prepared to photograph the sunrise. Though the language barrier between us was not full broken, I told of my walk in the mist two days before and wished him a good day. I respectfully moved out of his camera angle as I headed east that last time. But the waves drew me into the warm water. I felt it splash against my thighs. I photographed the tumbling breakers around me and the warming early morning sky. It was my last chance…for a while. Breakfast would come and the long road waited…It could wait a little longer.
A light rain fell most of the day we drove northward. A reason we picked the Pensacola area was it was the closest part of Florida. Even so Google decided that the trip should take 13 hours…how I have no idea. It always takes me longer than the cleaver computer program predicts, and even so 13 hours would be a long drive…not impossible but a really long day’s drive. So we broke the drive into manageable pieces.
I prefer to trek across country on weekends. It avoids workday rush hours. But timing is everything and this year it was mostly into the weekday crush that we inserted our Malibu. So, silly me should have picked a hotel north of Nashville for that Sunday night. I did say should have. But never fear for our bodies remained on Eastern Time while Tennessee is on Central, so up early and out the door by 5:30 local time put us ahead of MOST of the insanity. It had other advantages too, for it meant we passed around Indy during a less dense traffic period as well.
We arrived home in time to get Cloey from the kennel, I mean spa, that evening. The place we take our little wonder dog is superb. It makes it easier to leave her knowing how well they treat her there. She returned to us bathed and fresh…she hates baths…all poofie and glad to see us. Reunited the Vander Veldens of the greater Teegarden-Tyner area had made it safely home, the end of a wonderful vacation.
5-23-2017
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