'My Week On The Island'
"Whaddya say we run up to the mountains for a few days?"
She pursed her lips and pondered it for a moment then replied, "I say we go to the beach!"
"Alrighty, let's go to Galveston..."
"Nu-uh, I vote Padre Island."
I'll be the first to confess that every since her appearance on this planet, my daughter has always held the tie breaking vote...and so, last week the two of us set out on a very long trek across Texas in search of the ends of the earth.
There's a few things I discovered along the way. You know that chick inside your iPhone that tells you how to get there? Yeah, she had no more clue where Padre was than I did, which I discovered about half way to Ft. Worth which is NOT on the way to Padre. I also discovered that the best roads in Texas are NOT between here and there...and I was forced to admit to myself that a ten hour drive is not as easy as it use to be for this old goat. Nevertheless, we found our feet planted in the sand on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico just as the sun began sinking in the western sky that evening.
After sleeping in the next morning and enjoying a delicious complimentary breakfast offered by the hotel (some of you laughed at that joke) we made a long drive back into Corpus Christi to buy a boogie board that my daughter informed me was a must for the beach. By noon we had settled into our fold-out chairs on the shores of Padre Island. While my daughter ventured into the ocean, I slathered emormous amounts of SPF 50 Walmart brand sunscreen on the parts of my body that had not seen sun in decades. (Think farmer tan.) Once I was again comfortably settled into my official Texas flag chair-in-a-bag, I began doing what I enjoy doing most...peple watching! For the first hour I was consumed with admiring this year's swimwear designs modeled by the numerous scantily clad young women who had joined us on the sandy beach. As my interest waned in swimwear, I began observing the more common folks along the beach. I watched intently as a young man worked diligently burying his girlfriend in the sand, carefully covering her entire body until only her head was exposed. My attention turned to my other side, where a very large man kneeled in the sand, concentrating on the hole he was digging with a play shovel. He would periodically drop the shovel and run into the water to scoop up a bright pink bucket of salt water to pour into his hole. I glanced back at the couple and watched the boyfriend carefully shape huge sand boobs onto his buried girlfriend, pausing from time to time to gently kiss her as he toiled to complete his task. I'd then glance back to the man with his shovel, wondering if he expected children to happen along or if perhaps he was just a child in a grown-ups body who wished to dig in the sand. As the afternoon wore on, I observed families frolicking in the sand and the surf, young lovers falling even more in love, and pelicans plunging into the waves in search of dinner. I found myself in a peaceful state of mind...and found my mind wandering.
This is how it was meant to be...humans enjoying life to it's fullest...with not a care in the world. Living and loving life and loving each other. It dawned on me that we...the human race messed this up for ourselves, at least our ancestors did. God had intended for every day of our lives to be carefree, spent enjoying the wonders He created solely for our pleasure. He had meant for us to soak up the beauties of our world and in turn thank Him for such a tremendous gift. But...there was the tree of Forbidden Fruit...and it changed our lives. We were sentenced as a species to toil for our very survival...and only briefly throughout our lives would we be allowed to experience what I had the blessing to witness on this beach. What my eyes saw was a quality of life that some will never have the fortune to experience. As the sun set and we folded our chairs up and began our trek through the sand, I took care to store the memories of this day away for the future.
In the pre-dawn hours the following morning, a fourteen year old girl quietly dressed and slipped out of her hotel room, carefully shutting the door so as not to wake her sleeping father. She trotted across toward the beach to fulfill an item on her bucket list...a simple jog on the beach at sunrise. When she reached the shore, she paused and stared in amazement. Not one single soul but her was present to witness the breath taking moment of a sun rising above the still early morning tide. She reached for her phone and snapped a picture to capture the event...this was God's moment on the beach.
She pursed her lips and pondered it for a moment then replied, "I say we go to the beach!"
"Alrighty, let's go to Galveston..."
"Nu-uh, I vote Padre Island."
I'll be the first to confess that every since her appearance on this planet, my daughter has always held the tie breaking vote...and so, last week the two of us set out on a very long trek across Texas in search of the ends of the earth.
There's a few things I discovered along the way. You know that chick inside your iPhone that tells you how to get there? Yeah, she had no more clue where Padre was than I did, which I discovered about half way to Ft. Worth which is NOT on the way to Padre. I also discovered that the best roads in Texas are NOT between here and there...and I was forced to admit to myself that a ten hour drive is not as easy as it use to be for this old goat. Nevertheless, we found our feet planted in the sand on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico just as the sun began sinking in the western sky that evening.
After sleeping in the next morning and enjoying a delicious complimentary breakfast offered by the hotel (some of you laughed at that joke) we made a long drive back into Corpus Christi to buy a boogie board that my daughter informed me was a must for the beach. By noon we had settled into our fold-out chairs on the shores of Padre Island. While my daughter ventured into the ocean, I slathered emormous amounts of SPF 50 Walmart brand sunscreen on the parts of my body that had not seen sun in decades. (Think farmer tan.) Once I was again comfortably settled into my official Texas flag chair-in-a-bag, I began doing what I enjoy doing most...peple watching! For the first hour I was consumed with admiring this year's swimwear designs modeled by the numerous scantily clad young women who had joined us on the sandy beach. As my interest waned in swimwear, I began observing the more common folks along the beach. I watched intently as a young man worked diligently burying his girlfriend in the sand, carefully covering her entire body until only her head was exposed. My attention turned to my other side, where a very large man kneeled in the sand, concentrating on the hole he was digging with a play shovel. He would periodically drop the shovel and run into the water to scoop up a bright pink bucket of salt water to pour into his hole. I glanced back at the couple and watched the boyfriend carefully shape huge sand boobs onto his buried girlfriend, pausing from time to time to gently kiss her as he toiled to complete his task. I'd then glance back to the man with his shovel, wondering if he expected children to happen along or if perhaps he was just a child in a grown-ups body who wished to dig in the sand. As the afternoon wore on, I observed families frolicking in the sand and the surf, young lovers falling even more in love, and pelicans plunging into the waves in search of dinner. I found myself in a peaceful state of mind...and found my mind wandering.
This is how it was meant to be...humans enjoying life to it's fullest...with not a care in the world. Living and loving life and loving each other. It dawned on me that we...the human race messed this up for ourselves, at least our ancestors did. God had intended for every day of our lives to be carefree, spent enjoying the wonders He created solely for our pleasure. He had meant for us to soak up the beauties of our world and in turn thank Him for such a tremendous gift. But...there was the tree of Forbidden Fruit...and it changed our lives. We were sentenced as a species to toil for our very survival...and only briefly throughout our lives would we be allowed to experience what I had the blessing to witness on this beach. What my eyes saw was a quality of life that some will never have the fortune to experience. As the sun set and we folded our chairs up and began our trek through the sand, I took care to store the memories of this day away for the future.
In the pre-dawn hours the following morning, a fourteen year old girl quietly dressed and slipped out of her hotel room, carefully shutting the door so as not to wake her sleeping father. She trotted across toward the beach to fulfill an item on her bucket list...a simple jog on the beach at sunrise. When she reached the shore, she paused and stared in amazement. Not one single soul but her was present to witness the breath taking moment of a sun rising above the still early morning tide. She reached for her phone and snapped a picture to capture the event...this was God's moment on the beach.
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