Beach Party

Miles from the shoreline, 10 baby brown pelicans lounge by a pool in a roomy cage, large buckets of fish there for the taking. Just days ago, these birds could not feed themselves at all. Scores of starving baby pelicans — emaciated, cold and too weak to fly — are washing up on California beaches in disturbing numbers this spring.

If the Blogfather himself is talking about it, then it would be incredibly remiss if mention was not made of the fact that 2006 is the 60th anniversary of the bikini.

Lots of people sunbathing here, it seems on any available surface. Thus, lots of tans. Lots of too much tans as well. In general though the people here are quite lovely. Fashion is so colourful, lots of bright colours especially pink and reds. Lots of capri pants. Beautiful tops. Álso quite a lot of the fashion I see people wearing seems quite effortless.

Here are a few pictures from our Orange Beach vacation this year. As you can see, we had a great time again this year!!! The weather was absolutely wonderful and it seems that the kids spent as much time in the water as they did out of it.

Businesses clustered around the harbor advertise water sports, including fishing, snorkeling, daylong cruises, self-drive speedboats and yacht rentals. The town’s beach is a strip of sand and rocks that runs from the city center out to the large hotels on its outskirts. Though small, it is popular — and it is a blue flag beach, meaning it meets EU standards for safety, cleanliness and environmental concerns.

This is the lake that is just behind the main building. We looked for paddles to enjoy a canoe ride, but no luck. But it certainly looked inviting!

Everyone who knows me knows I LOVE summer, and for a variety of reasons – longer daylight hours, baseball, water sports, and the delicious assortment of summer fruits and vegetables. I especially love watermelon. Nothing cools me down in the summer faster than a bowl full of cold watermelon cubes. You should even try them frozen. Just cut the watermelon in 1 inch cubes, place them on a cookie sheet, and set them in the freezer for just a few minutes. The water in them crystallizes and the result is an even sweeter and colder treat.

The weekend started with the worst thunderstorm ever, the house got hit by lightning and all the lights fell out! Luckily Saturday and Sunday were sunny and hot so swimming and sunbathing were on the menu for us.

Later we went canoeing on the White River. It was quite beautiful and relaxing – I didn’t even really mind the stench from the sewage treatment plant we went by. We actually went into New Hampshire and discovered that it is possible to canoe to K-Mart. Unfortunately, we weren’t wise enough to go upstream first, so we found ourselves in a tenuous battle with the current. There was seriously a span of 15 minutes or so where we probably moved 10 feet. I’ve done a lot of canoeing in my life, but almost all of it has been on lakes and I quickly discovered that my river canoeing skills are painfully deficient.

Le soleil de la partie, une piscine (ben, pour moi :P), de la Sangria et des pous. Parfait. Ah, oui, et un bikini. J’aurais couché dehors tellement j’étais bien, installée sur mon super matelas gonflable, écoutant le bruit de l’eau. Mmmm. La banlieue (pff.)

Now, I'm really not a shallow person... And I'm sure that some of them are fantastic people... But wow.... They should have people in whatever store they got their swimsuits that watch these people and use a cattle prod on them when they get close to the bikini section....

Last time I checked, the beach was for having some fun in the sun and going swimming. With this, the most you get to do with the water is look at it. I can do that with my toilet. But these are not Saudi swimsuits, oh no. This is from a Turkish line. The Saudis get it much worse. Since the entire country is one big beach, the women there have the grand opportunity of wearing black, head-to-toe ninja costumes all day long.

I am bogged down in further negotiations on multimillion payments for rights to sail the Ark on the seas of Aotearoa. Other Maori tribes have sued me because they allege the Ark is a Pakeha version of the Maori canoe and they have appealed to the Waitangi Tribunal to declare it tapu. Then the Environmental Court ruled that I couldn't build the Ark until they'd conducted an environmental impact study on your proposed flood.

The weekend weather was not your normal beach vacation weather but that didn’t stop us from having a great time – even though we didn’t dip our toes into Lake Michigan. We did some of our favorite activities in the area & also some new things that are now on our “must do” list for the area.

After baggage claim we were greeted by a representative from Costa Rica Dive which we had booked our vacation with. They were very professional and had their own shuttle bus take us to the Ocotal Beach Resort where we would be staying for the next four days.