February 15th, 2022

This past Sunday was a rainy, grey, gloomy, breezy and chilly day.  And there are a  lot of great ways to spend a day like that.  It's a terrific day for making soup and bread.  I'm not sure why that exact combo but it's true.  Or baking anything for that matter. Rainy days are great baking days.

Or just curling up with a good book. Oh yeah, I can wile away a day lost in the pages of a great book, wrapped in a soft blanket in my favourite corner of the sofa with no problem.  On the other hand, Tim and I have upon occasion marathoned Tv shows or movies before on an inclement day.  We seem to be particularly fond of movies that come in 3's but sometimes we stumble across a television show (usually not a current one) that we've never seen before and that is our target.

But this past Sunday, instead, we took a drive.  Not a perfect day for a drive of course, but do-able.  Sometimes it's important to just get out of the house. That's what it was all about. Just seeing something other than our own four walls, y'know?  We love our home, but sometimes, we need a change of scenery.

We drove aimlessly. Well, Tim drove, I passengered. It's what I do. And I do it very well.  We chatted about this and that as we cruised along, observing things along the way.  It was a very pleasant way to do an auto wander. Not even an explore, just a wander.

Ultimately we found ourselves at Lido Beach up in Sarasota.  It's a gorgeous beach with very soft sugar sand, very few shells (no cutting up your feet!) and normally the parking lot is full to overflowing (especially this time of year) and the beach is packed.  It's usually colourful with umbrellas and beach blankets and filled with the happy noise of laughter and chatter and music.

On this day however, it was so quiet that even I could hear the waves and the sounds of the seabirds as they soared overhead.  The beach was theirs on Sunday.  The lifeguard shacks were locked up tight while their flags snapped overhead.  

A beach is entirely different when it's empty. I feel like Robinson Crusoe. Or perhaps one of the passengers of the Mayflower, finally reaching land once again only to find it entirely empty.  It's both exhilarating and kind of lonely.   Of course, civilization for me lay only steps away but standing on the sand, facing the water, listening to the waves and the birds, feeling the combination of rain and seaspray, I could sort of imagine what it was like back then.  I love that feeling. Not really time travel but the imagined version of it.

I could sort of imagine standing on the deck of the ships that had been "home" for months, feeling the swell of the waves beneath my feet, starring at the sand and the dunes and beach grasses.  Seeing the palm trees in the distance and wondering about my future.  I could almost feel what it was like to climb down that wet rope ladder to the row boat and then hear the scraping sound of it being dragged higher on the sand.    Can you imagine what it must have been like to walk up the beach, clambering in those long damp skirts up and over the dunes to find.....nothing. Just trees and shrubs and flowers and nothing. Just the future.  


Tim draped me with his sweat jacket from the car (he always keeps one in there for emergencies) with the hood up to keep me dry and gave me a place to hide the camera from the rain between shots.  I'm sure I looked ridiculous but I don't care.  I was warm and relatively dry and in a perfect place for a rainy day.

We were shivery and wet when we got back in the car so Tim blasted the heat and turned on our seat warmers. Yummy!  We are so spoiled but we warmed up in no time as we headed back home and I mentally returned to the 21st century.

​It was a great way to spend a gloomy wet day!