One of my dearest friends thought she'd be able to retire a few years back, and she and her husband bought and renovated a nearly-condemned condo in Melbourne Beach, Florida. Then, circumstances changed, and she started a second career at 52. Coming to teaching, as she says, "the back way" was a daunting proposition. After almost three decades as a pediatrician and public health worker in Eastern Kentucky, I can't even imagine how daunting it would've been to begin teaching anatomy and physiology to classes mostly made up of Army wives. I was lucky to be on hand when she started with us, and to this day, she credits far too much of her success to the hours I spent teaching her the ropes around campus.
Ever since she came to us, she's invited me to that beautifully reworked condo, and I've taken her up on the invitation twice. We call it my week of sanity in her little corner of paradise, and these are my photos from my visit two weeks ago.
Within a few hours of landing at Orlando, I was wiggling my toes in the sand in front of the entrance to the Sebastian Beach Inn. On Sunday nights, they offer really good reggae along with their decent selection of brews and the usual assortment of pub food. After singing along with an hours' worth of decent music, we meandered back south in the surf and looked for sea glass.
One of the most wonderful things about visiting Melbourne Beach is that I am a great deal more virtuous when I'm there. Breakfasts are Greek-style yogurt from a Mediterranean market topped with local honey and chopped apples or cherries. Lunch, invariably, is out somewhere but usually involves seafood or fresh vegetables. Dinner is usually a salad with a poached egg or a portion of our neighbors' daily catch. I've become a far more dedicated runner than I have been in the past ten years or so, and would follow my yogurt and fruit with a run, then a walk for Julep, the family Corgi.
She's a beautiful little lady, and even this dedicated and lifelong cat person fell in love with her a little bit.
Did I mention the running? Every day, morning and evening, I ran on the beach. I'm hoping to run a local 10k in October, and while I usually run once a day when I'm here in Kentucky, being there and running on the sand makes me homesick. I can't help wanting to run more often.
With views like these, how could anyone say no to a run? I've been running in Vibram Five Fingers for the past month or so, since discovering that my old shoes (and then two more 'standard' running shoes) all give me blisters, I made the gradual switch. I love them. I'm hooked, really. They were handy on the boat, too, when the aforementioned neighbor took us out for a day of deep-sea fishing.
I had the best luck of the day - 5 of our 15 black sea bass, and two large groupers that I finally had to get help reeling in. I do love being out on the water. I got used to taking kids out during my several years of working with Sea Campers at the J.L. Scott Marine Education Center, and since we had six (and a half) year old twins on board with us, I had to be sure to put on a good show of seawomanship. That included cutting bait, baiting my own hook, and removing my catch as the day went on, as well as being more particular about safety than I normally would be. It also included helping clean both my catch and the boat when we got home... something neither of the kids had any interest in until I helped scrub decks and wielded the fillet knife.
Melbourne is turtle central this time of year, and my morning runs always crossed a dozen or more sets of turtle tracks. Most of the tracks I saw were of Green turtles, though the area does have Kemp's Ridley and Hawksbills as well.
Between all of the running and walking and boating and boogie boarding (I am a lousy surfer on anything longer than my body, but I can get down on a boogie board.) there was a lot of good old fashioned bumming around. We read, read, and read some more - mostly on the beach.
This day's read was Alan Bradley's "The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag".
As a female physician, my friend has a special affinity for the young chemist Flavia de Luce, and as a nerd of the first water, I love her, too.
The next beach day was John Grisham's "The Innocent Man" and the first two Harry Potter books. Yep - with the upcoming release of Deathly Hallows II, I've got to get them all re-read before we go see the end.
Even our umbrella made for a pretty picture that day. Of course, when you're surrounded with so much beauty, it's impossible to take bad pictures:
Our second day out also gave me the chance to hang out with a young man and his Dad, both of whom gave me some pointers on my boogie-boarding form.
Dad grew up surfing at Indialantic, and he was far more excited to show his son the ropes than the son was to learn them. The young man spent most of his time digging in the sand.
My last day there was marred by the nearness of the wildfires in Central Florida. The morning breeze brought the smoke right to us. I only got one evening run in that day, but it was a beauty:
Julep joined me and found a wonderful doggie treat, or so she thought:
Coming home was tough. Really tough. Not only was it hotter in Kentucky than it was in Florida when I left, we don't have nearly enough open water, sand, or shells here for my taste.
Note: All photos were taken and edited with an iPhone 4, and most were lucky accidents with Hipstamatic's "hipstasmack" feature.