August 14th, 2026

I guess I owe everyone an apology.  I haven't been writing lately.  It was no one big thing, really, just a lot of smaller things that ate up my time and I kept telling myself, "oops, dang, I missed another day. Oh well, I will write tomorrow" and then tomorrow came and went and I was still saying it.   Life happens.

But today I'm back, first of all to hope that all of you are well and happy and having some fun out there while living your lives but also to show you a few photos I took last night.

For multiple reasons, among them vacations, appointments, heat advisories and rain, I haven't been on a real hike in over a month now. And I missed it. A lot!  Not just the hiking, although I do love that, but also being in nature, taking photos and hanging out with my sister.  As it so happens,  Joy is otherwise occupied right now, totally understandable, and I cannot control that. BUT I can control whether or not I go out on my own.

So with that in mind,  Wednesday night I told myself that I would wake up early the next day (thursday) before it got too hot, and grab my camera and head out around the island snapping away. And that was a great idea right up until I had a terrible night of non-sleep and finally dozed off around 5:30 am for about 90 minutes and the idea didn't sound very good any more. Dang.  But Thursday night after dinner I guess I got my second (or third or fourth) wind and  Tim and I headed over to the beach.

The first thing that struck me, other than, as always, how beautiful it is, was that it  was LOADED with people. In August!  In Florida! Our beaches are usually very quiet and practically abandoned in August. It's partly because August and September are our most likely months to have hurricanes and honestly, who would want experience that willingly?  But it's also because, this time of year is hot. Not just hot but 7th level of hell hot.  Daily heat advisories hot.  And also humid. Not just ordinary humid but soupy humid. Breathing under water humid.  It's unpleasant.  And why would anyone pay money to visit us then?  

Mostly they wouldn't.  But for whatever reason, this year, it seems that they would.  Sooo yes, Lots of people. Which is lovely.  It genuinely makes me happy to see so many people loving our town and our beaches!  Yay!  But I don't' really want to take loads of pictures of random people on the beach.  So we didn't spend much time at our first stop. Here's a few shots though.  One of them from the lifeguard shack - you'll know which one it is:

Even these few photos were tricky to get because people kept walking into the shots.  I wasn't mad at anyone of course. Everybody as just having fun! They were enjoying themselves, as they should.  But we decided to move to another beach access point.  Hey it's an island, the entire perimeter is water! Just pick another spot!

So we moved on.  The next spot was filled with giant machinery and pipes and other things I don't typically think of as photo worthy.  (all stuff from a beach renourishment project currently going on) But Tim saw a couple of possibilities which he pointed out to me so I rethought it and decided that even though it was far more industrial than I usually gravitate toward,  I kind of liked how different the shots might be from my usual.  You can decide how you feel about it on your own:

Our next stop was in an area that is loaded with beach front condo's on one side.  Definitely possibilities there.  Tim with his great eye for photos, was a terrific spotter of possibilities as we peeked down the corridors between buildings. Eventually we crept down to their beach for a few shots as well;

I think the pictures from the boat launch and marina are my favourites this time around.  That pink water reflected from the sky was just amazing.  

After all that we headed home, thinking I was done taking photos that night.  But as we drove, Tim cleverly spied one more really one good shot beside a house that is currently under construction.  Once he pointed it out, I could not resist this one:

Hopefully life and my calendar settle down next week and I can get back into my usual blog writing routine. Thanks for bearing with me during that gap!

Wishing all of you a wonderful weekend!  Hugs all 'round!