Walk this way ....

Smiling as I type this.  I'll tell ya, by the time we finish our two mile walk in this heat and humidity, no one wants to be walking "this way." "Trudge" is a more apt description. At the beginning of our walk, we're all pretty perky and keeping a pretty brisk pace.  Except for me because right away as we come out of the trees from the park, I am greeted with this spectacular view.

Isn't that simply gorgeous?  The building cumulus clouds along the horizon predict high humidity and possible summer storms later.  The reflections on the water tell you that, once again, we've got "not nary" a breeze.  It's going to be a long haul this morning.  We continue to keep up a good pace and are relieved to find that there is somewhat of a breeze on the island itself.  I tell my companions that they can continue around the parking lot and I'll catch up or meet them after I get a picture on the beach for my blog.  Dolores and Trish follow me instead and I snap several pictures with my phone, not realizing that because it has been next to the frozen water bottle in my fanny pack, all those shots will be unfocused because the camera got too cold. By the time I got to the beach, however, the camera has warmed up.

It is obvious that the park rangers have been busy.  We can see tractor tire tracks up and down the beach and piles of seaweed are waiting to be moved to the rocks forming the jetty. This picture is taken from the north end of the beach.  Lots of nice sand.  TS Debbie didn't do us in as we had feared.

I turned around and walked up a slight incline and looked over on the rocks at this end. The water is very still and gently laps at the shore and rocks.  There are those gorgeous clouds again.

We walk along the hard packed sand instead of going back to the parking lot and then the "trudge" truly begins -- up hill through loose, powdery white sand.

We reach the path and have a brief respite under the palms. I'm bringing up the rear...

The sun is very bright and hot now.  It as been up since 6:40AM and it is now around 8:00.  We walk past my favorite palm tree and I cannot resist another shot.  I am grateful that I am not having to buy 35mm film anymore.  I must have a hundred different shots of this thing.

I put my cell phone back in my fanny pack; we stop in the shade of a storage shed to hydrate and then the "trudge" resumes. We remark now about how much longer the causeway looks now. When we leave the causeway and hit the relative coolness of the trail leading through the mixture of palms, live oaks and pines to our cars, we slow down.  We are telling ourselves it is because we have to have a "cool down" period before getting in the cars.Yeah, right.  We are definitely walking far differently than when we started out.

Another walk behind us, each person in this tenacious trio admits that if we hadn't had someone waiting to meet us at the park this morning, we would have rolled over and gotten another 40 winks.

We're glad we didn't. We allowed ourselves to get into the shape that makes this a long haul right now, but it will get better and maybe we deserve to suffer a little right now. The long term benefits will be awesome.