I’ve been telling this vacation story for so long now, I no longer care (and barely remember!) how it ends. I suppose I should just get it over with already. Our last full day in Cape Canaveral can be summed up in just a few words: Easter, Evanescence, Cadbury, beach, dolphin, Mexican, crane, seashell, pool, Sunset, packing, shoulder. There. Got it?
Megan woke up that Easter Sunday morning to find a new Evanescence necklace in her Easter basket. (Ok, so it was really a cereal bowl with a couple of Cadbury cream eggs and the necklace in it, but, hey, we were on vacation and had to improvise!)
After breakfast (mmmm….chocolate!) we headed down to the beach. Megan actually let us spend about 2 hours just soaking up the sun and enjoying the wildlife (which seemed to be running rampant that day). First, I noticed a dorsal fin travelling up the coast line. I grabbed my camera and went down to the water for a closer look.
As I watched, he would disappear for a few moments, then reappear a little closer. At one point he actually leaped out of the water as if he were performing at Sea World, no more than 30 feet away from me. Unfortunately, my photography skills aren’t quite as spectacular as the dolphin’s jumping skills, so the only photo I managed to get of him is above. Frankly, I was amazed I got that!
As I returned to my towel after Flipper’s photo shoot, I noticed an Hispanic man with his camcorder, also trying to get a good shot. He said something to me in Spanish, and me, having worked with native Spanish-speakers for over 2 years, of course had absolutely no idea what he was saying. Eventually I managed to deduce that he was asking if the thing in the water was a dolphin.
With the excitement over with for the moment, Megan and I returned to our sunbathing. It wasn’t long, however, before the second act began. This time the lead role was played by a crane. At least I think it is a crane.
This huge bird landed on the beach nearby and decided to stay. He was *quite* interested in the bucket of bait seen in this picture. Every time the fisherman and his wife would get out of their chairs and walk away, he would get closer and closer. When they would return, he would suddenly turn his head as if to say, “What bucket? I don’t care about what’s in your bucket!” It was pretty comical.
Eventually Mr. Crane lost interest in the bucket and wandered off down the beach. I took a few moments to use my cell phone to send a photo to my mother, who was with the rest of my family having Easter dinner. I call it “Toe’s Eye View.”
As Megan began to make her preliminary grumblings to indicate that she’d almost had her fill of the beach, my Hispanic friend approached once again from where he’d wandered down the beach. He walked right up to me, said something in Spanglish that I once again did not understand in the slightest, and handed me a sea shell. It was a cute little spiral shell, almost completely intact, maybe about an inch in length. I thanked him as best I could, hoping against hope that I didn’t somehow agree to marry him or anything without realizing it, and he went on about his way. A few minutes later, Megan made the official request that we move to the pool. Amazed to get as long at the beach out of her as I did, I decided not to push it, and we moved.
We spent another 1 1/2 – 2 hours at the pool before heading upstairs. We showered and got ourselves cleaned up at some point and wound up at the Sunset Cafe, a restaurant on the Banana River, for dinner. I took a couple of pictures during the 5 minute wait for our table to be ready:
Dinner was ok, but not quite as nice as the view. After dinner we went back to the condo to begin the sad task of preparing to come home. I spent the rest of the evening doing laundry, packing a little, and watching tv. Doesn’t sound too strenuous, right? As I laid on my bed in between laundry loads, balcony door open to let in the sound of the ocean, I began to notice that my right shoulder was sore…