To The Beach On A Whim!

Having friends who live spontaneously can be a good thing, especially when you aren't that way yourself.  I'm a planner.  I can have fun, but usually it's "planned fun".  A few weeks ago in the middle of a very ordinary and planned week, I got a message from my friend Carol that started like this, " How crazy and adventurous are you?"  She had found a good price on a roundtrip flight to Tampa and wanted to go to her favorite beach.  For forty years she's been visiting Clearwater, Florida and staying in a cute little hotel near the beach.  With a description like "the room is neat, cute, with a kitchen, heated pool and one block from a pure white fabulous beach" she definitely had my attention.   With my calendar in front of me, and encouragement from my husband, I set about rescheduling my "life" so I could take off.

On Thursday of last week, we left for our beach adventure.  I've only been to Florida once and it was in a completely different part of the state, so I was excited to visit a new town and looked forward to swimming in the Gulf of Mexico.  After a long day of driving to Atlanta, and the stress that always comes with negotiating airports, we arrived in Tampa in the late afternoon.  Forty minutes later we were greeted by this sign.

For the next four days we soaked up as much sun, surf and seafood as we could handle.  It was wonderful!

Something about being at the beach helps to erase all the stress from my life.   I like to say the beach is my therapist.  I enjoyed long walks...the longer the better.  The sound of the waves crashing on the shore and the gulls in the background are soothing to my soul.

From sunup

to sundown,

the beach was the place I wanted to be.  After the first day we fell into a comfortable rhythm.  Wake early and watch the sunrise over the bay.

Enjoy breakfast in the room and then head to the beach for reading and relaxation.   I loved the soft, white sand.  It's very different from NC beaches.

Back to the room for lunch and a little rest followed by more time on the beach.  The water was warm in the afternoon, 82 degrees warm, so we would swim and dry off in the sun...then swim some more.  The beach has earned it's name because the water is really clear.  Carol made friends with the birds

and we shared fries at the beach front grill. Something about being at the beach unleashed a craving in Carol and we "just had to have some."  The same thing happened to me a few days later, but mine was for ice cream.  You gotta love those beach hair styles we were sporting. That's another thing about being at the beach that I love.  It really doesn't matter how your hair looks.

Our evenings were spent eating great seafood at buffets with everything you can imagine or at Crabby Bills Restaurant.  A couple of evenings we cooked dinner in our room, but dinner was really all about the seafood.   Carol got her fill of clams and I ate a little of everything - crab cakes, shrimp, tilapia, scallops, deviled crab.  We both loved the lobster bisque at Shepherds.  Oh, the seafood was so good!  In the evenings we rested, well I rested, while Carol worked on Continuing Education.  She was facing a deadline and had to get her work done.  I, on the other hand, did absolutely no work and felt a little lazy while she labored over medical terminology about stroke patients.  I had to snap this picture of her in our room one evening with her hat on, trying to shield her eyes from the lights of the overhead fan.  It just cracked me up.

On Saturday we got to visit with George and Carol's nephew, Frank and his wife Grace, who live near Clearwater.  I knew we were in for a treat when they came into our hotel room with bags of kielbasa, recently purchased at a Polish deli for us and some to take home to uncle George.   As transplants from NY, I loved their northern accents and could've listened to them talk for hours, which is exactly what we did.

These fine folks took us out to lunch and we decided to try the Polish restaurant where they had purchased the kielbasa.  What a treat.  I'm not overly familiar with polish food, but they have Ukrainian family roots and it was fun to have them guide me through the menu and to try new things.

 First, Carol and I tried the borscht -  a wonderful soup made with beets, potatoes,cabbage and lots of fresh dill.

Yum!  That's all I can say.  That bread was pretty good too.

Next we decided to try a combo plate which had a stuffed cabbage roll topped with tomato sauce, kielbasa on a bed of sauerkraut and pierogi with farmers cheese.  We are talking some serious food here folks!  Grace explained how to make the sauerkraut taste almost sweet, rather than sour like German sauerkraut.  I think I'm going to have to get that recipe from her.  It was delicious.

In fact, it was all delicious and I discovered that I am a huge fan of pierogi.  How could I have lived this long without tasting something as good as pierogi?  What fun to try new foods and hear this family share their memories of how their mothers and grandmothers made these meals. I loved hearing about their holiday menus, which were so unlike anything I ever had on Christmas or Easter.  Dessert was a hot plum strudel.  Yes, it was as good as it sounds. I kept thinking about having to go back to the hotel and put on a bathing suit after eating all this hearty food.  Oh man, we were stuffed.

We browsed around the deli before heading back to the beach.  I love looking at foods from other cultures.

Along with that sauerkraut, I'm going to learn how to make pierogi.

Thanks Frank and Grace for a tasty afternoon.   

On our last day in Clearwater, I woke up early to get these shots of the sun rising over Clearwater Marina.

Later in the day, we would leave from here to go sailing on this boat. (Excuse the poor picture taken with my phone - it's the only one I had)

Carol had been wanting to sail on this boat for years and since I had never been sailing before it seemed like the perfect grand finale to our trip.   It turned out to be better than we had hoped it would be.  We ended up with the entire 60 foot long sailboat all to ourselves, except for Captain Brian who did all the work for us, so we could enjoy the scenery.

The captain and Carol spoke a foreign language as they talked about types of sailboats, engines, how many knots we were going, starboard and port, the bow of the boat and sailing in blue water.  I listened and tried to learn, but mostly I just enjoyed the sound of the waves lapping against the boat and the serenity of being in still, calm water.  We delighted in seeing the tarpon and dolphin swim around and under our boat.  They are much larger than I realized.  At one point the captain told us if we kept going straight we were 790 miles from Brownsville, Texas.

I had a great time, but Carol really, really loved it.  Sailing is one of her passions.  I'm so glad I got to experience this with her.

We had been blessed with five days of beautiful sunny weather, blue skies and not a drop of rain.  We had spent hours on the beach, swimming, relaxing and getting to know each other better.  Even though we have been friends for a long time, you really get to know people when you travel with them.  For instance, I knew Carol loved sailing and the beach, but I didn't know she only likes to swim in salt water (no pools for her), her favorite color is green(mine too), she doesn't like garlic or cherry tomatoes, she loves snow skiing, native american history and clowning.  Yes, Carol was once a clown.  We laughed and cried together. We lost things, hunted and retrieved most of them.   We ate lots of great food and I discovered a wonderful new vacation spot. It was fun to have Carol show me all her favorite places and share memories that have been a lifetime in the making.  I'm so grateful for our friendship and all the things I learn from her.  She is an amazing woman.

Thanks Carol for letting me become a part of your memories of Clearwater Beach, Florida and thanks for helping me put aside the planner and do something spontaneous.  It was awesome, friend!