The pounding of the waves, the endless blue sky and the blazing sun. Nothing renews my soul like a perfect beach day.
Perfect Beach Morning
I woke up this morning, which happens to be my birthday, to the gentle sound of morning ocean. I love morning ocean and the way the beach is washed clean from yesterday’s footprints. Every morning is a fresh start at the beach.
It’s like coming home to your apartment after you’ve cleaned it from top to bottom, floors freshly mopped, knowing you can walk barefoot and not get any crumbs on your feet. Pure bliss.
This week I’m in Marco Island, Florida. Let me tell you how I got here.
Geographical Claustrophobia
A few weeks ago I realized that my home in Dallas is the farthest I’ve ever lived from the ocean in my life and I instantly started feeling claustrophobic. I grew up outside of Boston where salty Maine is just a little over an hour away. Then I spent 11 years in Florida where the ocean is never more than an hour away no matter where you are.
From there, I spent many years in Louisiana. The Northshore of Louisiana is actually quite far from the ocean if you try to stay in the state. But you can get to the Mississippi gulf coast in just over a hour if you really need to see water.
And then there was San Diego (the Garden of Eden) where the ocean was never out of sight.
But in Dallas, you’re a hot minute from any kind of surf (unless you count surf and turf) and you’re going to have to get on a plane to reach one.
On the brighter side, you can go pretty much anywhere direct from DFW, so there’s that.
Saturday Morning Manifestations
I’m still adjusting to the cost of living in Texas (it’s a lot better than SoCal but still 3x what it was in Louisiana) and the travel budget has been non-existent. That said, this flower doesn’t grow without sun and water so I decided to manifest a way to get myself to the beach for a little rejuvenation.
It’s not uncommon for me to be sitting in front of my computer on a Saturday morning, cup of coffee in hand, doing random vacation research. I’ve got lists on my phone of places I plan to go or places that look worthwhile. I’ve got a journal dedicated to future trips I haven’t taken yet.
These days, the challenge isn’t finding somewhere appealing to go, it’s how to find something that a normal human can afford.
There are moments when I get discouraged. The sheer number of options that seem to have popped up from nowhere since the pandemic is both exciting and overwhelming.
But the prices!
I try very hard to not feel frustrated that there are a heck of a lot of people out there who can drop $1000+ per night just for a nice hotel room. At the moment, I’m not one of them. Truth be told, even if I had money to spare, I struggle with those prices for overnight accommodations.
Then I just shrug it off, and I keep digging. I tell myself it wouldn’t be any fun if you could just jump online and book whatever you wanted. Part of the joy of travel is the planning and anticipation. So I gladly take on the challenge of searching up a lesser known place where I can get a decent deal.
And I’m a bit of a perfectionist, so even when I’ve found something I like, there’s always the chance that something even better is out there….
Land or Sea
Nine times out of ten I’m looking for sun and sand. I do occasionally have visions of spending a holiday tucked up in cozy log cabin in the woods, fireplace roaring, some kind of savory stew bubbling away on the stove while delicate snowflakes fall outside the window. A stack of paperback books on the coffee table. Long underwear. Possibility to finally see the ever-elusive moose.
But the alternative of tossing a handful of bathing suits and flip flops into a small carry-on always wins out.
For me, the ideal beach getaway means the guarantee of sunny days and temperatures above 75 degrees. It can dip below 75 in the evenings. That’s actually preferable because that means you can leave the sliders open in your condo, fall asleep to the sound of the surf and not sweat to death from the humidity.
Needless to say, oceanfront accommodations are an absolute requirement.
Marco Island, Florida
I like to cater in at the beach. I can eat out anytime. Give me a local market that sells some fresh fish and a grocery store and I’m good to go. (Confession – I will drive up to an hour out of my way to hit a Whole Foods instead of settling for Winn Dixie or Kroger).
I ended up choosing Marco Island, Florida, for my escape. I’ve actually never been here before. I lived on Sanibel Island last year just before the hurricane took them down. I drove past Marco Island when I left Sanibel on my way to the Everglades (which was the beginning of last year’s solo cross country road trip that I documented on the blog – see Frittata Cross Country if you are interested). Marco Island is as far south as you can get on the Gulf Coast of Florida unless you plan on sleeping with the gators.
After many nights on the internet and quite a few afternoon hours stolen from my real day job I was lucky enough to score an oceanfront condo for the week of Thanksgiving. At a very fair price. I gathered from my research that to get an oceanfront unit on Marco Island, you were going to have to accept circa 1960s buildings and hope to find something that had been renovated to acceptable standards. But that is exactly what you want a Florida beach vacation to be. If you want glitz and glamour (and freezing cold Atlantic ocean), go to Miami.
I had also figured out that the buildings on South Marco were much more “on the beach” than those at the north end. I had been torn between some options in a set of buildings known as “the towers” because they seemed to be a little newer. But review after review told me that despite being “on the beach”, it was literally almost a 1/2 mile walk from the building to the actual beach.
That’s an awfully long way to walk when you need to refresh the ice in your cooler or go pee. I chose an older building that was a short boardwalk stroll away from the sand.
Provisions
My direct flight from DFW had me in Ft. Myers (closest airport) by 1130am on Saturday morning. After a short stroll down the Emerald Aisle, I was on my way. I had to kill time since check in wasn’t until 3, but that was fine by me. That means I can take my good old time picking up my supplies.
I hit Whole Foods for the good stuff, Publix for the junk food and a local seafood market that was actually on Marco Island (I got 2 crabcakes, tripletail, mahi mahi, crab legs and a pound of peel-and-eats for $50!) before I pulled up to my building.
It was pretty much as expected. It took a couple of minutes to let the accommodation-snob that lives inside of me go and realize that for half of the price of a basic hotel room in Cabo I now had a 2 bedroom oceanfront condo with laundry and full kitchen to myself for the next 7 days. It was updated as well as you could ask, and most importantly it was CLEAN. Unobstructed ocean view. Sound of OCEAN hitting SHORE. Ocean breeze. Salty ocean smell.
Exhale.
Toes In the Sand
I threw the perishables in the fridge without unbagging them and headed down to the sand.
It was late afternoon, and extremely windy. Very choppy. A little too chilly, a little too cloudy. But the sand was powder soft, and the seagulls were happy to see me.
WeatherBug promised me that tomorrow I’d wake up to calm winds, cloudless blue skies and high 70s. So I went back upstairs, settled in and made a fabulous dinner of my fresh catch with a pea and fennel puree.
On Sunday, my birthday, the universe conjured up the ultimate perfect beach day. Here’s what that looks like:
The Perfect Beach Day
Woke up without an alarm clock to the sound of ocean. Walked out onto balcony. Immediately saw dolphins about ten feet off the beach having a leisurely breakfast.
Good, strong cup of coffee. Favorite royal blue leggings. Beach yoga. Tree pose.
Breakfast. Eggs, potatoes. Fresh croissant.
Toes in sand by 930am. Beach read in hand (I literally found a book titled “Beach Read” and didn’t even bother to read the back cover).
Zero clouds. Just the right amount of breeze. An occasional spray of Hawaiian tropic. Not hot enough to sweat.
Lunch break – made perfect lobster salad croissant sandwich (coming in the next post). Bag of Ruffles and a container of whipped cream cheese and chives (a nostalgic snack addiction I can’t usually feed because they don’t sell that stuff anywhere but New England and Florida).
Back to the beach. Time for a little day drinking. Cold adult beverage (I’m newly obsessed with June Shine and other fizzy seltzers). Get two of these down as quickly as possible. Wait about 20 minutes.
NAP TIME. A good, long, startle-yourself-awake-by-snoring kind of nap.
Stretch legs. Dust off sand. Flip over. More nap.
Wake up feeling a little sticky, and a little crispy from the sun.
Stumble down to the water to discover the temperature is actually PERFECT. Ease out into the surf. Dive forward before you can think about how chilly it will feel on the belly. Float on your back like a starfish.
See how close you can get to the pelican that’s bobbing just up ahead.
Back to the chair. Second wind. Time for some tunes.
Jimmy.
Chesney.
Marley.
Watch adorable little shore birds run in and out of the water. Wonder what the seagulls are thinking.
Take a long, leisurely stroll down the beach just so you can get sun on your back without having to lay down again. Do some window shopping for your next condo.
Butt back in chair. Stay until the sun sets. Pull on a sweatshirt for those last few minutes.
Shower. Do not comb hair.
Comfiest beach sweatpants, tank top. NO bra.
More fresh catch for dinner. Wine. Movies, ideally chick flicks.
If at all possible, find local ice cream. Rainbow sprinkles, obviously.
Fall asleep with the doors open. Sound of the ocean being the last thing you hear.
That is a perfect day at the beach.
Repeat as many times and as often as possible.
Your pics. Your words. Your meals. All tantalize (as usual). Your posts pull this reader from the mediocrity of Mandeville. I enjoy two geographic gifts: the mountains and the sea. Each surrounding brings its unique solace: the calming vision of the blue grey smoky haze of the Blue Ridge Mountains surrounding our chalet or the soothing susurrations of the endless waves crashing against the the seashore of Santa Rosa Beach/Sanibel Island. Thank you, my friend, for the gifts of sharing your experiences. Happy Birthday!
Um, I might have to hire you to ghost write a book for me. While actual experience does light the path, imagination fuels the words as much as reality. As always, I appreciate your kind words. The goal of any blog is to hope there is a human on the other end who chooses to spend the minutes reading and who may be even slightly transported by the words. Thank you for being that human.