Iron Man Triathlon, Rainy Day Shelling, and Beautiful Nothing Doings

May 9, 2024

So David and I took off on our PCB road trip today and didn’t look back…well I did when I backed up. SL had finals and wasn’t really feeling like making the trip with the dorky parents this time, so David and I decided to leave earlier than we planned. Thanks to our wonderful friend and condo owner who was so gracious by being flexible with our travel dates and other things. We have rented from her for years and it is always like going to a second home. We appreciate everything she made possible for us this year. Thank you JT.

We got a later start heading out than we wanted but that is par for us. We enjoyed the trip… talking and listening to podcasts and stopping the podcasts to talk about the podcasts. We had zero plans to do anything this time except just go and try to forget things for a while. We have been looking forward to just having no plans and no place to be. We stopped a few times on this trip to let David move around and this seemed to help his ADD and mood. It helped me too since apparently, I do not have the stretchy, durable bladder I had back when we could make the PCB run in about 4 hours flat without stopping. I am forever having to find a decent restroom to pee before, during, and after travel. As a kid, I hated this about going anywhere with adults. Always having to find a restroom before any fun could commence. Now I somehow find myself wearing the same wrinkling suit of age as those individuals from back thence. Fun Fact: Did you know that the snack machines at the Alabama Welcome Center sell anklets? Neither did we. And why are welcome centers so creepily creepy? Maybe because I remember stories of murder or kidnapping or unpleasant things like that from the 80s and 90s. There are always some odd ducks at welcome centers.

May 10, 2024

I had scheduled a grocery pick up from Walmart for last night but missed it because they stopped bringing out groceries at 8. It seems like things close earlier at the beach than I think they should. Like, I am on vacation, so I guess in my mind, everything should be open all of the time. So, we got up this morning and rode a couple miles down Front Beach to get the required vacation snacks. I am not a Walmart fan but coming from a small town, it is pretty much all we have outside of the local grocery store. Fun Fact: The very day we got grocery pickup service in little ‘ol Thomaston, GA, I had David there for a pickup, and I have not bought a cart full of groceries inside since.  Incidentally, when I scheduled the grocery pickup that day, I had no clue it was the first day. It was during Covid and David was met at the car with balloons, goody bags and a camera recording his pickup. Turns out, he was the very first pickup customer for Thomaston and that was his 15 mins of celebrity fame. Anyway, we got back to the condo just in time to settle in for a day of rainy, stormy weather. The saying is true though. A rainy day at the beach is still a day at the beach. It beats any day in the regular drudgery of life. A friend said the other day that rainy beach weather gives her an excuse to lounge around. I agree. You don’t feel the guilt of needing to be out doing things to prove you did something worthwhile on vacation. David and I had been warned about the Gulf Coast Iron Man competition the next day. It started, transitioned, and ended at the condo and much of the parking was commandeered for the events so we didn’t want to risk the sweet parking spot we lucked up and got at the front of the tower entrance just to go sloshing around at the beach shops. The beach view was perfect. We ordered in this evening and have been watching our tasty Five Guys burgers and fries ride around in some GrubHub person’s car. “Natalie” picked it up and then proceeded to drive in the opposite direction picking up and delivering to everyone else on the beach until she reached the hungriest people on the planet where she tossed our luke warm soggy burgers on the doorstep. This irritated me to no end. The order was marked late at the 1.5 hour mark and there isn’t any recourse for this kind of service really. They give you $5 off your next GrubHub purchase that has to be used within 30 days. So what’s the point? We had tipped well too so it just feels like a personal letdown.

May 11, 2024

I woke up early and peeked out between the curtains all squinty like you do because the bedroom is so dark and the outside beach world is so bright even at ungodly hours of the morning. I never run to the window at home first thing when my feet hit the floor to throw open non existent heavy light blocking drapes but we do it at the beach every day as if checking to see if it is still there or if we were swallowed up by the sea overnight. The 1,800 iron men (and women) 70.3 participants were lined up on the beach ready to start the swim portion of the competition. The start time was 5:40 am. David woke up soon after and we got set up to watch them all pile into the ocean and swim the 1.2 miles out and then to the shore. And let’s just be honest, I will admit we were watching for shark attacks. We are not people who prefer the company of large, medium, or small crowds of other humans, so we spent the rest of the day 11 floors up going from beach view to street view watching them transition from the swim to the 56 mile bike ride then back again to run 13.1 miles and back to finish at the front of our building. These triathletes are amazing. David said we watched so much Iron Man today that he felt he had to drink Gatorade this afternoon. The awards ceremony was at 3 by the pool so we sat on the balcony and watched. The fastest time was by a male and a female ages 18 & 19. I think they did it in around 4 hours. There was like a total of 8 hours to complete the competition. The oldest participant was a guy that was 82 I think. Once they cleared out, we took our chairs and went to sit on the beach. I struggle with my backpack beach chair and sand much less all that iron manning exercise that went on today.

May 12-15

We spent some time on the beach and more time inside watching it rain looking for the rip currents in the ocean from the balcony, and watching the last season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. I am a big Seinfeld fan, and as much, a Larry David fan. We also spent time trying to catch up on Wordle. We found Wordle blanks our minds and when thinking about words and letters we don’t have room to think about things like cancer and livers and colons and rectums (Oh, my!) Like everything else we do, we play as a team because I need his brain and patience and reasoning and he needs my ability to spell. We went out to dinner for Mother’s Day and a few other evenings with the early bird crowd. Each evening, after the rain, we were able to take the chairs and sit on the beach. There is no better time at the beach than in the evening and early morning. We like to search for treasures and shells and we stopped and bought a metal sand scoop and had the best time fishing things out of the water. We found so many shells and several pieces of sea glass (green, blue and brown) which I covet like Gollum’s Precious. I love, love, love finding sea glass and really any unusual thing-a-ma-jig that washes up. We came across a piece of brick in the water this time with edges that had been washed smooth like a pebble.  I love the tiny intact shells and put them in little glass bottles. We always bring home shells even though we have enough to stock a small beach or pave a seafood restaurant parking lot. We always check to be sure they are vacant because I do not remove shells that have tenants or any living thing like a gray sand dollar. David enjoys beach combing too, but I know he tolerates the fact I could do it for hours every day. He is like that with everything. He is my go-alonger. Up for anything. Supporting anything. Making things happen I don’t know how to do. He never complains and when I ask “are you ready to go”, he says “whenever you are”. He is my heart. I love sitting with him on the beach when it is just dark enough to see outlines of things and the orange lights on the hotels and condos come on for the evening. David makes me laugh always and there is interesting people watching to be done on the beach at night as well as during the day. With the rain and storms most days and purple and double red flags for a few days, we didn’t get to go in the water but once. David was more disappointed by that. He likes to remind me that he has no interest in getting eaten by sharks or having a 100 foot Man o’ War tentacle wrapped around his torso all the while he is wading right on out there to swim around like bait for said creatures. For years, he has always spent hours making these incredible sand sculptures. He made lots of mermaid tails over the years that allowed people to step down behind it in the sand and pose for pictures as if they had a mermaid tail. He loved to make them and go back to the room and watch from the balcony all evening as people would stop and point and hop down into the dugout to pose. Over the years, there have been suns, and starfish and hearts and anything SL would request. As usual anything he attempted was perfect.  For the past couple of years, he has not felt like bringing along all of the sand stuff, so we didn’t bring anything this time to play. I attempted to make a snowman with some tools I got him a while ago that makes sand spheres, but the thought was abandoned after my 49 year old back suggested I should really just accept my age and get off the ground. For a few days, we watched a large fever of rays swim and chase the small fish and things in the waves. David saw some jump out of the waves a few times. They are fun to watch. The ocean was angry for a few days, and we saw people that could not resist getting in despite beach enforcement and the sign trailing behind the overhead plane telling people to stay out of the water. As soon as the patrol would move down the beach, the people would head back to the water. The day we left, the ocean was loud and white caps were way further out than you usually see them. I just know we left all kinds of treasure on the beach. Probably tons of sea glass in all sorts of magical colors. It is always good hunting after the water has been rough.  We both get sad when it is time to go no matter how long or where we stay. This year was no different and maybe a little worse. Vacation is a time to forget worries and bills, and health concerns and life stuff. I could live a good life just having two questions for the day: What time are we headed down to the beach and what are we eating for dinner? We are not looking forward to the upcoming doctor appointments and whatever treatment is in store for him now.  We took that for granted for many years. Coming home was just coming home from a nice vacation and getting back into the swing of work, school, etc. This time, coming home is back to the struggle of trying to survive.