All Play and No Work

It was kind of hard to get used to the idea that we could just go to our beach cottage and do nothing.

Yeah, nothing, if that's what we felt like doing.

The work is done--at least for now.  We have water, and everything is fixed and painted and furnished.

When we got there at about 10:30 on Saturday morning, Paxton settled right in for a nap in his favorite chair so that he could be well rested for later--bouncing off the walls and the furniture all night.

We took Jodie out to the beach right away because once we're there, she can hardly contain herself.

Just as we got back to our yard after the beach walk, a car pulled up and stopped.  The woman in the passenger seat asked us if we were the people who blogged about the renovation of the cottage!  We told them we were, and they said they had googled Kitts Hummock and stumbled on my blog.  They kept telling us how much they loved everything we had done to the place. That little encounter really made our day.  Each time we go down now, we feel a little more like we belong in the community.

After the beach, Jodie was ready for a nap too.

I spent most of the afternoon reading on the futon, which is like a built-in window seat in our dining room.

We watched March Madness Final Four in the evening, but Jodie still got me up early the next morning to see this beautiful sunrise at the beach:

For a few minutes everything was pink--the sand, the water, and even the dog--I didn't mess with these photos at all:

Usually, I bring Jodie back after our early-morning trek to the beach and go for a run in our neighborhood, which consists of one road that parallels the bay. I have to go up and back in both directions twice (which means I see the same stuff four times) just to get in 3.5 miles.  But recently we noticed a parking lot with a trail on the road where we go to the store, and I decided to check it out.  I googled it and found out it was the Isaac Branch Trail of the St. Jones River Greenways.

So with that as my planned Sunday morning run, I got there at about 7:30 and parked my car.  It was freezing--35 degrees--and I really hadn't brought enough warm clothes, so I just layered on a tank top and two long-sleeve tees over my tights and running shoes.

It was worth the trip.  This is the view at the trailhead:

The trail weaves in and out of trees with occasional glimpses of the water.  I went out 2 miles and back for a 4-mile run, but I want to take my bike there soon so I can see how far it actually goes. The best part is that it starts near the Wawa, so I can reward myself with a big Diet Coke when I'm done running.

On Sunday afternoon, Doug decided that he wanted to be a trail blazer.  Our little cottage borders wetlands, and we know there are pools of water out in the middle, but all we can see are reeds, or grasses known as phragmites.  So he put on his boots, grabbed a heavy-duty rake and plunged in.  After about half an hour of slogging through thick reeds and sometimes-more-than-ankle-deep water, he reached real water.  But it was kind of disappointing because it was just one of the smaller pools, not the open water we can see from Bay Dr.

Doug's longer-term plan is to build a kind of lookout tower where he can set up his camera with the super-big lens and photograph the wildlife in the marshes. So I guess we'll have to wait until that project is done to get our water view.

We left to come home at about 4:00 on Sunday, relaxed and happy.

We're looking forward to many more weekends just like it--doing exactly as much, or as little, as we want. 

Isn't that what a beach cottage is for?