Enjoy the Outdoors. Love the Planet.
All about Nature, about the outdoors<>I love it, photograph it and protect it.
Life’s A Beach! And Then You Go Back to Work…
I ended up scheduled to work Saturday and Sunday again this weekend and it’s not the end of the world. I like the work I do and our management and crew are exceptional people to work with, so I’m not going to whine about working through the whole weekend.
It’s just that there was no way I was going to do anything on Friday except go to the beach. I did. I had a great outing.
I spend quite a bit of time at Lori Wilson Park in Cocoa Beach and arrived Friday morning just after 10:00. If I had gotten there much later, I would have ended up using some other site for that day’s beach excursion; a paid site, that is. But I did get in before the “cursing and orbiting” got underway; Bulldog was a lucky pup this last time out!
I usually unload my gear and head straight for the ramp but lingered a while this time to ponder whether this would be the trip where I’d explore the Hammock nature trail at L.W.P. It took me a while to decide that it was and so I threw my beach umbrella back in to the cruiser and headed for the ramp for the nature trail with only my trusty Canon in my hand.
The trail, I discovered, is not that long; it comes in right at 1/4 mile total. I took my time exploring its length and did slip into the trance with which all photographers are very familiar. It was a good session. Here’s a shot I liked especially, love to play with light and shadow in settings like this:
Truth be told, I only stopped because I realized that I left that beachy straw hat I love so well in the car and that’s not a good thing for this dog. So I cut it short with about 200 shots, went back to the car pour mon chapeau and other essential beach gear and headed for the ramp.
I opted to stay beach side for about four hours, which is a bit more time than usual for me. Before long I was joined by about thirteen jillion of my closest friends and though I thought about leaving many times before I did, I focused on my little slice of sandy, salt-saturated real estate, took a few pix and chose not to dwell on the fact that this trip did not include that illusion I treasure that this time, I’ve got the beach all to myself!
Here’s a shot of my new gullfriend, who in this frame does seem to have Mother Nature’s gifts all to herself; but there were gulls-a-plenty at Cocoa Beach on that lovely Friday afternoon, so neither one of us had the pleasure of pretending that we alone held the key to that tiny corner of Poseidon’s kingdom!
It was a little shy of 4:30 when I headed back to the park, stowed my gear and headed off in search of food. Once my hunger had been staunched, I set out for my fave Starbucks in Cocoa Beach to start working the photos. I knew I had more than enough for a blog post or two and got pulled so deeply into the editing job that I completely missed another activity in Brevard that I had tentatively planned to take in; a quick look at my cell phone’s calendar feature revealed my latest in a never-ending series of failures to review calendar entries until the events have come and gone!
It was a bit frustrating, but because the day had been very well-spent, I was not going to spoil it with thoughts about how it might have been even better. I’ve done that so many times, but passed on the latest opp to sabotage my happiness. And on Saturday morning, as I headed for work, the memory of another happy outing on one of Florida’s amazing beaches was not diminished at all by the awareness that I’d soon be logging on to the system at work and jumping into another busy shift. I’ll create another opportunity to scratch that constant outdoor itch that has plagued me for my six decades on this planet.
And when I do, I’ll take some photos. I’ll have an update or two on social media, and a blog post here for sure. And I’ll no doubt have to show up at work for another shift or two to support my outdoor habit. And then the whole cycle will launch again. C’est la vie!
“Beachdog Ben” Basile
Photo credit Benjamin Lawrence Basile
Enjoy the Outdoors. Love the Planet. 
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