Reach The Beach

As I figure it, I haven't been back to Florida before this trip in seven or eight years at least. It's hard to figure it exactly, but I was still working at summer camp in Arizona, which fixes it to that minimum. There are many things about the place that I have missed, my beloved relatives aside. One that was addressed to reasonable satisfaction was the beach. I do live near enough to the beach in LA, but it's just not the same. I'm no beach snob (the pleasure and lethality of being in the sun balance out about the same for me as they do with cigarettes), but Florida's shores are plainly superior.

Unfortunately, we could not go to Crescent Beach, the one of my childhood, but Siesta Key's beach is not too shabby and not that different. It's a little crowded, but downright deserted compared to a busy day at Santa Monica. The makeup of beach-goers is a little different from that as well. The keys around Sarasota have a median age someplace around sixty or seventy, I would guess. Regrettably, society has disabused them of their formerly dependable quality of modesty. Luckily, there were enough young people to carry on.

It was a lovely, warm day, and I did not get burned too badly (My legs got it worst, and at the wedding to come those would be covered). The thing I love most about the Florida beaches I know did not disappoint on this day: the sand. LA-area beaches have terribly coarse sand which responds all too readily to the heat. You just can't walk on it barefoot. The sand of Siesta Key, for example, is far more friendly. It's very fine, and resists growing too hot to walk on in the sun. It is pleasantly crunchy when dry and soothing when made wet by the rolling tide. I could speak endlessly about it.

It's quite sad that we had just a couple of hours to spend there, but it was better than none at all. I swam a little, walked the length of the beach alone and with my father, and read the newspaper a little. After the scare of initially not finding any parking whatsoever, the price paid to ensure that we managed the experience seemed quite worth it, although the operator of the parking lot was worthy of a post in himself, and not a terribly flattering one. Perhaps I shall be unable to resist, so keep reading and it may surface.