Retreat

“The Sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.” 

--Jacques Cousteau 

When I was just a toddler, my family and I literally lived on the beach.  Well, we lived a long a private, gated road about a quarter mile down from the beach.  Although I was too young to really remember a whole lot from the time we lived in that house, I vaguely remember long afternoons at the beach.  I can't remember a time that I have ever turned down a trip to the coast willingly.  I would spend every weekend of the summer there if I could.

I have been lamenting a bit lately because the summer is pretty much over and I didn't make it to the coast at all.  Last weekend we got to go stay the night at a friend's house, though (that is right on the ocean I might add!) and spend Labor day in Seaside.

There is nothing more relaxing than waking up to the soft roaring of the ocean and taking a quiet walk on the beach.  Even better: keep your camera in hand!!

One thing I have never noticed about the ocean is how much the color of the sky is reflected in the water.  I didn't even really notice when we were there last week.  It wasn't until I came home and I was going through all of my pictures that I saw it.  Look at the next two pictures.  The first one was taken at about 9 a.m.  It was still pretty overcast and the water has a very gray, lifeless look to it.  The second picture was from the afternoon.  The skies had cleared up and the water in that photo is much more blue.

Now - I took a ton of pictures.  I have narrowed them down as much as I could, but I really fell in love with some of them and it was hard to pick which ones to share.  So there are quite a few to come.  I think I will split it up a little bit into another post, though.

  

One of my favorite things to do - especially places like shopping malls or fairs where there are a lot of people - is to sit back and just "people watch".  Some people may call it being nosy or snoopy - but if people are going to go out in public, I say I have a right to look at them!  It's just entertaining.  And there are a lot of entertaining people at the beach!

Walking the one mile from the main street of Seaside back to our friend's house doesn't seem that far when you are taking pictures all the way back!!

This last one was already included up above - but it was one of my favorites from the day so I wanted to showcase it a little bit:

Like I said before - I actually have a few more pics that I want to share.  But this post is already too long (and has taken FOREVER to put together!!)  I will post the rest soon...