Postcard From The Gulf Coast

  Our time on the Gulf Coast of Florida is coming to an end in a couple of days so I thought a recap of the past ten days was appropriate.

  First, a warning. I've rewritten this paragraph three times and each time it sounds like whining. Suffice to say we came here to enjoy warm weather at the beach and we haven't been able to do that. It's been boring and depressing. There. Done.

  Yes. That's our pool. We haven't even stuck a toe in it since we arrived. Guess what? The day we leave it's supposed to warm up here but we're heading to the Atlantic coast and it's warm there too.

  Before the Biggest Storm In History brought cold and snow to north Florida this week we managed to get out and explore a bit. Last weekend we took in the Sarasota Farmers Market then headed down to the water where we saw the cutest twenty-foot tall couple.

  You likely recognize it, from a famous picture taken at the end of WWII, as noted by this plaque.

  It was a beautiful morning, one of a very few, and we managed to spend some time in the sun. After the market we headed down to Siesta Key Beach, supposedly the #1 beach in the USA, as the sign says.

  We beg to differ. I'd like to know what criteria are used by the voters because we've been on a lot of beaches in the USA and #1, this ain't. The sand is so fine it compresses and feels like walking on a road, like Daytona Beach. There's little or no surf, like many Gulf beaches. Because the beach has a dramatic slope down to the water you can't really see the little bit of surf unless you pitch yourself within fifty feet. As a result there's a bazillion people all crowded down by the water that you have to negotiate your way through to get your toes wet. Like, who voted for this?

  Last November we spent two nights on the Florida Panhandle. There was no one there. The sand was perfect; "sugar sand" the locals call it. Not much surf but great sand. Unfortunately, right now it's covered in six inches of snow. For sheer gobsmacking beauty I'd take the dramatic beaches of the South Oregon coast. Again, no one there. Ridiculous waves bashing in against the rocks. To me, those would be better choices as the #1 Beach in the USA. You get the point.

  Anyway, we went there, saw it and left. The weather from The Big Storm was closing in and we figured being at home was a better idea.

  Of course, with the weather being shit and nothing to do in this house (there's a Scrabble dictionary but no Scrabble game), scanning news feeds was all that was left. I won't bore you, Dear Reader, with my take on the shitstorm that's settling over this country with President Numbnuts in charge but just know it's impossible to ignore when you're immersed in it.

  After a couple of days, with a full dose of cabin fever upon us, we decided to go for a drive. The weather report said if we drove south for an hour and a half it wouldn't be raining. And so we did. In hindsight, we could have driven three hours east and had a warm day at the beach. We didn't.

  We ended up in one of our pre-COVID vacation spots, Fort Myers Beach. If you're not aware, a couple of years ago they were hit with Hurricane Ian and last fall, Hurricane Milton. What kind of a hurricane goes by the name of Milton? Milton sounds like an uncle that drops by to pinch your cheek and slip a whoopie cushion under your butt. If they wanted an "M" name for a devastating hurricane why not something menacing like Mephistopheles or Mammon. No wonder people didn't evacuate.

  Anyway, we got a first-hand look at the devastation with strings of oceanfront properties that once contained multi-coloured beach houses and now only concrete slabs and broken palms.

  There was a lot of that. There's a big pipe running the length of the beach that is being used to pump sand from the ocean back to the beach as part of the restoration project. Construction is everywhere, some restoring existing structures and some new builds. No tourists. There's no restaurants, bars, parking near the beach, etc. A lot of the condo buildings like the ones in which we stayed are empty due to water damage. It's a sad sight. We hung out a while while Penny searched for interesting sea shells thenl the rain from up north moved in and we headed home.

  It's started to warm up and the sun came out today. The weekend weather promises to be much closer to what we signed up for so we can go outside and frolic. We'll play some golf, go to the beach, get a drink at a tiki bar and look forward to better weather and a more interesting location at our next sit, at Boynton Beach.

  We have a couple of days between this sit and the next so we'll hang out at Cocoa Beach and hope the weather holds so we can get an up-close view of a SpaceX launch Tuesday night. We've also agreed to a two week sit in Houston that will fill the gap after Florida so we're all booked up until the end of March. All the sits promise to be more interesting than our last three weeks. We hope.