It’s so very true. I’m just not myself if I can’t see it, hear it and smell it at least once a month. Nothing promotes serenity quite like a trip to the beach.

I’ve got my fave spots on the Atlantic coast. Daytona Beach bills itself as “The World’s Most Famous Beach” and I think they can back it up. New Smyrna is a lovely destination, I’ve been there many, many times. The white sands of our Gulf Coast beaches are hard to beat; don’t get to them that often, but they’re among the very best the Sunshine State has to offer.

But for the last four years, Cocoa Beach in Brevard County has been my get-away spot. At some point in my beach-hopping I realized that I had been to Cocoa Beach enough times that I was beginning to know the town more in the way that a resident might as opposed to a casual visitor. And then it happened.

Something truly did change in that remote corner of the brain where one’s beach preferences are stored. For me it was Cocoa Beach. Cocoa Beach and no where else.

It’s entirely possibly that I’ll retire to Cocoa Beach one day in the not-too-distant future. In the meantime, I often escape to serve–if only for a few hours–as one of Neptune’s loyal subjects. It’s a role I relish. And I don’t have to stay all day. Just long enough to get in my beach fix; a little sand in my shoes, a little beer in my belly. Life is good. Then, batteries fully charged, I head back to Orlando and dream of my next seaside excursion.

 

Photo credit: Benjamin Lawrence Basile