Storming the beaches

Thanks to Covid, it had been two years since we last went to the beach.

I suppose we could have gone before now, but we didn't want to take the risk. We'd heard all the horror stories about the unmasked hordes at the beach and just who was – and wasn't – vaccinated.

Kim poses with her turkey (it's not me).

 We'd even purchased tickets to see The Beach Boys (what's left of them) at Alabama Theater. We bought the tickets in advance back in May when the Covid crisis seemed to be waning, but then the Delta variant popped up heading into autumn, so we cancelled our date for October. We really didn't want to be in a sold-out venue sitting next to somebody shoulder-to-shoulder who was unmasked and spewing along to "Good Vibrations" at the top of his infected lungs.

But then the Veterans' Day weekend came along, and so did opportunity. Kim and I are both fully vaccinated and boostered, so we felt relatively comfortable going to Cherry Grove. On Thursday, we hit the road.

The weather was perfect. The only drawback was that there was some glitch in the cable system where we were staying and, consequently, we had no television. I am a child of the '50s who grew up on television. Howdy Doody. Sky King. Roy Rogers. Superman. Ovaltine. I've probably watched something on the tube every day of my life for the past 65 years. I often turn the screen on just to give me background noise, even if I'm in another room and not watching anything. I'm kind of pathetic that way. I probably came this close to going into withdrawal. (I wonder if there's an approved program for television addiction?)

But guess what? I brought a John Grisham book with me. I had the Internet on my phone. Kim and I had complete and uninterrupted conversations. We were happy to be there. Kim actually shed a few tears of joy as we entered the Cherry Grove town limits for the first time in two years. "I never thought I'd be back," she sniffed.

As it turned out, we were at the beach for about 44 total hours, but we packed a lot of stuff into a short amount of time. We ate a great meal at Dockside in Calabash, followed by our traditional stroll through Callahan's emporium. On Friday, we took in Broadway at the Beach, Barefoot Landing, the Tanger Outlets on Hwy. 17, and Books-A-Million at a nearby mall. 

I don't know how we did it. Neither one of us took a nap on either day.

We even walked the beach for an hour or so. That's something we hadn't done in years. I didn't even mind the sand in my shoes.

Then we wrapped up the day with a wonderful deck-side meal at Molly Darcy's Irish Pub, watching the tide roll in and the sun roll out.

It was all nearly perfect. We got away and cleared our heads. I don't think it'll be two years before our next visit.

Look. There really is an Atlantic Ocean.