The Journey to Big Red

The walk down the beach to the state park where the lighthouse stands is often referred to as a "death march." That is an exaggeration, but today's walk to Big Red was more arduous a trek than is often the case. The wind at about 25 miles per hour from the north made the journey south easy. In fact I was feeling pretty strong as we walked down the beach. But the way back was quite a bit hampered by having to walk into the wind.

I try nearly every year to get the definitive picture of Big Red. This year's attempt has to overcome the disadvantage of a total cloud cover. During the entire hour and a half journey, we encountered not a single human being on the beach or on the pier by the lighthouse. It was just too chilly. We saw from a distance during the walk, two humans and two dogs - almost a shutout.

Santini joined us for the first section of the trek, but turned back when we reached the yellow boats. She's dressed for the day.

The MOTU (aka Unky Herb) was barefooted, but otherwise warmly dressed. He and I completed the trip, even so far as to go about three quarters of the way to the end of the pier. We stopped because the waves were breaking over the surface of the structure and we thought we'd get drenched if we went further. There were other photos taken, not reproduced here, of a turtle, sandpipers, and more gulls.

Here's one of the gulls as he hovered in the air, or at least appeared to, because his forward progress into the wind was completely nullified. It made photo taking a bit easier.

It was a pretty complete day entailing a trip to the Farmer's Market to obtain veggies for soup and a return here to actually put the 12 veggies and some assorted additions together in a tasty soup. Lunch.

Later this afternoon, the COTU and OSLO and Brad came for dinner and later still the traditional walk to the park with the tunnel through it. I even managed my own first run down the dune on the side opposite the inland sea. There is no video.