First Run at the Beach

Between unpacking the car, putting away groceries and supplies, and "profoundly" steam-cleaning the condo's carpet, there had been no time for a run yesterday morning.  But this morning I awoke early with the intention of running to Fort Macon and back on a route that has become very familiar to us over the past few winters.  

It was warm enough for a singlet, and although a little stiff starting out my legs soon loosened up and I enjoyed seeing the landmarks along the way:  the marsh grasses on my left across Bogue Sound and the buildings along the Morehead City waterfront, mainly the tall Bask Hotel, race headquarters for the Crystal Coast Half Marathon for many years; then the one-mile mark just past the Fort Macon State Park sign, and the two-mile mark just before the Coast Guard Station.  It is exactly two-and-a-half miles to the Fort, so it makes a perfect five-mile run, farther if one circles the parking lot a couple of times.  We are so familiar with the route that we know where Superintendent Randy Newman's house is.  I didn't see his beautiful golden retriever on the front porch, and I hope it is doing well.

I had thought this would be an easy run, sea level and (by Highlands standards) flat as a pancake.  But on the way back to the condo I slowed down and took several walking breaks, very much as if I was completing a much longer run.  I can only attribute my fatigue to five days without running and the 480-mile drive on Thursday.  Martha seems to have the ability to take off several days, or even weeks, from running, and then can begin again with no problems, but I start to deteriorate if I miss more than two or three days.  As I approached the Picnic Area, I decided to turn in and circle the parking lot a couple of times to give me six miles.  The west side of the parking lot was filled with surfers donning wet suits and carrying their boards from their pickup trucks across the dunes and down to the beach.  It was a quiet surf, but I suppose that riding big waves is not the purpose of surfing, just as catching fish is not the purpose of fishing.  On the east side of the parking lot, fishermen were unloading their rods and heading out for a day of surf fishing.  While I was running toward the fishermen, a small brown bird shrieked loudly at me as I passed his little bush:  "Hey!" he seemed to say.  I stopped and stared at him, only three or four feet away, and instead of flying away he just stared back at me in curiosity.  

I was relieved to return to the condo.  It had warmed up, and I downed a full bottle of Gatorade.  Martha had left a note saying she was walking on the beach, so I went out to the dune-top deck to wait for her, enjoying simply sitting in the sun.  A man and his wife squeaked by in a four-wheel wagon sort of vehicle containing folding chairs and what looked like eight or ten different fishing poles, out for the entire day on the beach, I guessed.  Martha's slim figure appeared walking toward me and she waved.  She had walked to the Oceanana Fishing Pier toward the west and taken some good photos which she shared with me.  This little group of sanderlings looking for breakfast in the surf:

And these fishermen lined up along Oceanana Pier.

She had also found a piece of a sand dollar.  "I decided I'm just going to get pieces, and put one together that way.  Everything's broken anyway." 

I thought that was a good plan, assembling something from spare parts, making all of the pieces fit imperfectly together.  Everything is broken.  It reminded me of that Leonard Cohen song:  "There is a crack in everything; that's how the light gets in."  

Yesterday, while driving to the post office, we had discovered that The Shark Shack was open and we had stopped for a take-out lunch.  We had heard about this place from Martha's niece Amy who has stayed out here during the summer, but it had always been closed during the winter.

Shrimp burgers piled so high that one order would have been enough for both of us, cole slaw, and hush puppies.  One would not want to eat that kind of fare every day, but it was our first lunch at the beach.  It turned out that they were closing the next day.  The young man at the take-out window told us they would be leaving for "the mountains," which they visit in the winter - just the opposite of us!  Today, we returned to our more normal fare:  black bean burgers and guacamole and pasta salad.  And this evening, Martha sauteed some flounder, with Taco Tuesday spice mix from Blue Ocean, with black beans and yellow rice.  Alas, no photo was taken of this simple meal, all the pieces of which fit perfectly together.

And so the day came to an end as it always does out here, with a gorgeous light show to the west, out beyond Oceanana Pier, as the sun sank into the Atlantic Ocean.

What a magical event these sunsets are out here!  The sky is just immense, and the clouds streaking across it are always just a little different.  And all around the horizon - north, east, south - a band of rosy light begins to glow, reflected from the blazing sun in the west.