Our friend, Gary the gator, he lives behind the condo we are staying in and we enjoy watching him cruise around the lake.
While their are no waves, at least on the Gulf side, in Fla. They have some pretty sweet beaches.
We have visited 4 and yesterday's beach was such an incredible experience we are going back there again today.
Some lessons that OBX can learn from FLA:
One word - Concession Stand! Each beach we have been to have a concession/picnic area. Some even have had playgrounds for the kiddos. Yesterday I cruised up the vast expanse of the beach to the concession stand and purchased lunch for the family and then carried it back to our beach umbrella. Prices weren't bad but the best thing was we didn't have to pack along a cooler or huge bag of food for the day (we were there most of the day).
The biggest lesson the OBX can learn are butts on the beach. Every year I go to our beaches and get irritated because all around me in the sand are cigarette butts. I want to design a t-shirt that reads: Keep your butts off our beach! If a person has to have a nasty habit they should at least keep that habit in the privacy of their own car or home. Worse than looking around and seeing the butts is getting all set up and then have a loud family, from a state where they only know how to communicate by yelling, set up 3 feet from your beach chair when they had 55 yards of sand around you to choose from. But then it gets worse, they light up a ciggy. Next thing I know I'm choking on second hand smoke. Very inconsiderate of them.
So all of that ranting and raving brings me to this (which by the way none of this has anything to do with youth ministry or parenting except parents shouldn't let their kids smoke) Florida's beaches are smoke free zones. It is illegal to smoke on the beach!!!!! They even have sweet containers at the entrance to the beach much like our doggy poo bag containers on the OBX but these containers are for cigarettes. It was great to experience the beach this week, the beauty of the blue and aqua green water, the soft sand (like baby powder), to watch my son play in the sand and surf, all of this in a smoke free environment.
Siesta Key is a huge beach with snow white snow that feels like baby powder. It is a super wide beach. They had at least 8 volleyball courts on the beach. You have to walk out pretty far to get to deep water which is good for families with small children.
On a side note:
The other day when I was at Starbucks it cost me $15 which included one cup of coffee, a scone, and wireless fee.
Today I sit in Panera. I bought 4 bagels a tub of cream cheese and a large coffee, $8.79. I'm feeding the whole family and getting free Internet. Starbucks could learn something from Panera!
Tomorrow we attend FBC Venice. I'm going to do my best not to kick into evaluation mode. Hopefully I'll learn a few tips from them that we can use, we shall see.
Next week . . . let me just say I shall be spending my birthday with Mickey.
4 comments:
Have you been to Longboat Key? That's where we went to the beach down there a few years ago...sounds like you're near there.
Um, you do realize we live on a glorified sand bar, right? And building a concession stand on our 5 ft of beach, easily swallowed by surf, would not be the best financial investment? *haha*
I remember LOVING the frozen lemonade carts on the Myrtle Beach beaches. And I'm totally with you on smoke free beaches...let's start a petition!!
Have a great rest of vacation!!!
They could build one up on pilings or allow a mobile business to contract out with the county.
Siesta Key is where Kye first learned to swim alone. He loved it. (He was 4) You do have to add a lot of water to get that sand to stick together for castling (I think we included some seaweed as well). That is definitely our favorite beach on the Gulf coast!
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