To the Beach…Earthquake?

We have migrated South for the time being.

We kicked our beach vacation off with an earthquake.

Who knew what it was?

The house started to shake pretty hard and it was confusing.  I looked out at the windsock on the deck and it was barely fluttering.  I figured something was VERY wrong with the plumbing.  Thinking the house was going to fall down I made my way back the hall to my sleeping baby. I am not trying to sound dramatic… I just thought something was very wrong with the supports of the house. Walking down the hall felt similar to when you walk on a bus or an RV.  By the time I put my hand on the door knob the rattling and shaking stopped.

 I let go of the door and shrugged it off as the house fell quiet.

 I walked back out to the deck and looked to see business as usual out on the beach.

Before all the shaking and quaking I had a relaxing  morning sitting on the deck reading this book called The Eve Tree by Rachel Devenish Ford. Here is a free first chapter of the book . It would be a good autumn reading book as it has a warm smokey feel. Can I say that it has the best feel of a book I have ever touched? Before I ever opened it I took it to my husband and made him touch the cover. He agreed it has a unique suede feel. I never felt a book like it. I generally don’t read fiction but one of my readers suggested it and I tucked it away for this trip. Truthfully I started it back home and then one of the kids stuck it somewhere. I then found it the day before we left. So I am happy to sink back into the story line and see it to the end.

People are funny at the beach.  If you put your book down long enough to watch them.
I watched an older round lady with cute cropped grey hair lug a toddler over the dunes by his head.  
He seemed unfazed.  
I couldn’t help but smile.
She was trying to do the “right thing” by carrying her grandson over the hot sand.  However you could tell she was too… ahem…err… big for her britches to haul him the whole way. So with each thud of her well pedicured flip flopped foot he dripped further down till at the top of the dune only his head was in the crook of her elbow. She then set him down and told him , “Do you see Paw paw?” in a sing songy but wrung out kind of way. The toddler ran off and the round woman with cute cropped hair seemed fit to pass out on the dune fence.

I swear the old man from “Up” (the movie) is renting the house next to us. It is completely endearing. He sits all day hunched over a newspaper with his square glasses perched down at the end of his nose. He hasn’t moved a muscle all day. Just stays hunched over the paper, save the time he was surprised to find his wife had been at the beach all morning.
Again I smiled and laughed …men are funny like that.
He had no idea where his aging wife was and decided it best to sit and read the newspaper having given up on her whereabouts. She had called up to him from the sand and he, surprised ,had reminded her, “you know I can’t hear anything you are saying.” To which his shaky wife assured him, “I know,” and she kept right on finishing her story.

That’s one of the great things about the beach…everyone just keeps on talking but you can’t really hear them. You just smile and look back out to the waves…and somehow that’s acceptable.

Welcome to the beach….pull up a beach chair and relax .  

Don’t mind all the shaking it’s probably just an earthquake.

Again thank you for all the support as we all try and recover from the devastation from yesterday’s quake~T