Beach Pictures - Day 2

We learned several lessons this day...

First, we thought it would be fun to have a breakfast picnic on the beach. So, Granna and I took the kids, stopped by the continental breakfast provided by the hotel, picked up some bagels and danishes to go with the cereal I already had in my bag, and started walking out to the beach. As soon as we were off of the boardwalk (they have walks to get from the hotels out to the beaches to help protect the dune areas) we were "attacked" by a flock of seagulls. Apparently gulls are VERY visual! I walked back a while, stuck everything in my bag and then went back to the beach. The gulls still watched us, but since they couldn't see our food, they left us alone! So, after sneakily eating our breakfast (didn't want the gulls to see our food and come back!) we spent some time shell searching out on the beach. We found some, saw lots of sand-dollars (but left those alone - it wasn't worth the $50 fine!), and even found a crab-leg that had washed up on shore.

However, (lesson number 2) we left the beach about 3 minutes late and ended up getting poured on before we got back to the room.

Later, we joined up with Grandpa and went for a car ride. Along the way we saw a few alligators lurking in/near ponds as we drove by... no room to stop and get pictures though (of course the speed that we were going, they could have been just logs, but it's more fun to think alligators!).

We went for a walk up to the top of a lighthouse to see the scenic view. From the top we spotted a small stage at the edge of the harbor. We climbed back down the stairs and then Granna, Grandpa, and I (plus a few passersby) were treated to a ballet performance to a solo of "Oklahoma". Then we found a playground for the kids to play on. Garett being my engineer even was trying to make a pine cone bridge across a large puddle! He might have had an easier time, but he insisted that the only place to properly build a bridge was at the deepest and widest location! After all the building and playing, we winded up with an ice cream treat (Thanks Grandpa!).

The evening ended back out on the beach as the weather cleared up and we took a moonlight stroll. Actually we went looking for crabs, but didn't find any of those - I think the sand was too hard. It definitely wasn't the soft Hawaiian sand I'm used to!