I drop Samuel off at his day camp at 9am and have several hours to take my long awaited beach walk.
As you can see from the photos, the first 99.9% of my walk was absolutely beautiful…. clear sky and clear water! Honestly I don’t think I’ve ever seen it look so gorgeous here!
But…..Check out the last photo I took of the lighthouse… to the left, you can see the start of a storm rolling in over the island. From where I shot the lighthouse photo to the first part of civilization (condos), it’s just over a mile.
So instead of rushing back as I should, I take a few more photos and kick around in the water….. until I hear a crack of distant thunder!
I start walking quickly towards the condos (not ours, just the first ones I can get to!).
I call Jon and tell him I may need him to pick me up because of the storm and he said to call him in a few minutes if that is the case. I hang up the phone, thunder and lightning crack…. and I call him Jon
right back!
I break out into a run (we all know I love walking… just not much into 1 mile beach sprints!) as thunder and lightning crash in front of me. As I run, the first set of condos seems to be getting further and further away. I understand this is impossible, but I digress….. I get to the condos and thankfully a family lets me in the first barrier… the locked door between the beach and the condo’s private pool.
So, there I am in the rain, the thunder & the lightning, standing next to the pool of some random condo development. Barefoot. In a bathing suit. Panting from running at mach 2 speeds down the beach. With
little to no cell service on this part of the island.
So between broken and dropped calls from both sides, Jon has determined that I am in the condo development and he will now drive to said development, talk his way into the place past the gate, then find
me at one of the several unnamed and unnumbered buildings which all look vaguely the same. Beautiful place, by the way. Very nice South Florida landscaping.
Meanwhile, I have to find my way to the front of one of these buildings as he cannot pick me up at the beachside pool. From my understanding of Key Biscayne condos (which is quite limited), I know I will have to travel through either a building or a parking garage to get to a point where Jon will be able to drive. Since I am still barefoot (and still with sandy feet) and in a wet bathing suit, I know that my presence in the lobby will be frowned upon, so I opt for the parking garage.
I start walking around (barefoot) and finally find the parking garage. I walk and walk and walk through the parking garage (barefoot)… my feet feeling grosser and grosser by the millisecond! Then I see the
Exit sign! It’s for cars, but I know it will dump me out to where I need to be!
Upon leaving the parking garage, I find a little patch of wet grass on which to clean my parking garage feet.
Since the thunder and lightning are pretty much on top of me, I have to make a decision as to make. Where should I stand to wait for Jon?
The open patch of grass does not seem like a safe option… and I recently read somewhere that open-sided shelters are not safe either. This makes the huge awning in front of the random-condo-building a less-safe alternative than the parking garage…. But my feet are finally clean and I spy a nice little bench right outside enormous, (clear) glass lobby doors that appears to be fairly well protected.
So, I march up the stairs (with no less than 10 people watching me curiously from inside the lobby) and with as much elegance as I can muster, sit down on the bench and cross my legs as if I was sitting down for high tea.
Seconds later, Jon arrives… and flies past me! After 10+ broken and dropped calls, we figure out where I am and he comes and saves the day…. Complete with a cover up and flip flops!
Since it’s raining as I write, we’re heading to the Miami Children’s Museum.
Where I will wear shoes!
