A day at the beach

Seeing as summer is over, which means the tourists are gone, and Chris and I didn't get much of a June or July, we decided to head to the beach today and make up for lost time.  We headed out for Clearwater Beach about eleven this morning and spent the better part of our first hour there looking for parking and walking to the infamous Frenchy's Rockaway Grill.  It's a nice bar on the beach with live music and lots of alcohol.  We stopped in for jerk chicken and jerk grouper.  Chris had a Landshark Lager, Jimmy Buffett's newest entrepreneurial endeavor, and I had a coke because I didn't want to dig for my ID.  I did try some of Chris's beer though, and I have to say, Mr. Buffett has become quite a brew master.  And I'm not just saying that because I'm a die hard Parrothead - Chris agrees, Landshark is a decent island lager.

From Frenchy's we headed to the beach - a whole twenty feet away - and set up camp. There wasn't much surf, then again it's the Gulf, but there was enough to make some noise and excite a few kids, which is always fun to watch.  We did the usual beach thing - laid out, went for a swim, laid out again, went back in.  I'm more of a swimmer than Chris is and I really go to the ocean rather than to the beach, but with Papa Hemingway's, The Sun Also Rises, to keep me company, I did okay on the beach.  After five or so hours we finally headed home.  We almost got run over by some guy in a Camry who saw us, in a crosswalk, but apparently didn't have the complete circuitry to realize that he should stop.  Of course, he looked at us like it was our fault, right.  

And so ended our day at the beach.  We did this last Saturday as well when Chris suggested that we go to the pool at our apartment complex, and not really being one to enjoy laying out by the pool, we ended up at the beach instead.  I have to say, Florida beaches are so much nicer and more fun in September when the summer crowds are gone than they are May through August.  Okay, well that's enough from this beach bum.  Happy Saturday!