Florida--Day Two

On day two of our trip we decided to take it pretty easy. We slept in and woke up to eat a leisurely breakfast of fresh fruit, croissants, and coffee outside under the warm Florida sun. We eventually decided to head to the beach. Dan and Kerry took us to the beach near Titusville, Florida at Canaveral National Seashore. As we climbed the stairs to get over the dunes, I captured my first look. For those of you who don't know, I've never had a true ocean and beach experience. I had always said, "I'm not a sun, water, beach kind of person", well...I was wrong...it was breath taking. Beautiful, calm, quiet, and quite the demonstration of God's handiwork.

The beach is located near the shuttle departure pad, and they are forced to close the beach several days before and even the day after the launch due to the heat emitted. Thankfully, it was not one of those days. At one point we heard and saw a helicopter coming at a fast rate of speed toward us. It was flying low and was within 100 feet of us. I tried to quickly grab the camera, but I only captured the back end of the NASA chopper.


We were able to spend about five hours enjoying the scenery and even taking a few dips in the water. The temperature outside was about 87 degrees, while the water temperature was in the low 70s. A little cool at first, but with time, it was quite comfortable. Kerry had packed a delicious lunch of oysters, cheese, crackers, grapes, carrots, hummus, and sausage.

As we were out in the water I questioned Dan and Kerry about fish or critters biting your toes or legs. They were in the midst of answering my question when "ouch!" I felt my ankle start to burn. I pulled it out of the water, but there wasn't much to see. It felt like a large bee sting. After got out of the water, I tried to ignore it, but I looked down and my ankle was bright red with a small white line going around, yes...I had been stung by a jelly fish. After about 20 minutes the sting went away, but even today, four days later, there is still a mark. Chances are, a cute little jelly fish was probably just swimming by and a tentacle just brushed against my leg. From that point on, after speaking too soon about not every sitting on a runway waiting for a flight to take off, and about critters, I decided I needed to watch my words.

I can't express how relaxing it was. I could have stayed there the entire time were in Florida. Around dinner time we decided it was time to head home. We stopped at the grocery store to pick up some steak and shrimp for dinner. Once again, the food was wonderful. As the night passed we came to realize the mark the sun had left. Thankfully, we applied, and reapplied sunscreen through out the day, but unfortunately, our feet had already been covered with sand, so they didn't get any sunscreen. George and I each had a few spots that we had missed putting the sunscreen, but for a day in the sun--we both faired very well.

In the next few days I'll try to write more and share a few highlights of our trip. Even now, in typing about it...I'm not doing the trip justice. Maybe I need to go back to get some more pictures?