Wordless Wednesday: Aloha

Confession: I’m on vacation this week. A real, honest to goodness, pack up the family and go somewhere really fun vacation, which we haven’t done in a while so was very needed. I thought I would be using this time to stir my creative juices and knock out the rest of the Mt. Meru posts, boom-boom-boom, but the only thing I can bring myself to stir is the ice in my mojito.

Can you blame me? I do so love the beach.

If you get up early, before the 5,000 other people on vacation here get down to the beach and clog it all up, it’s serene and gorgeous. It’s fun even when they’re there, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve found the older I get the more I really cherish a bit of quiet, so I’ve made it a point to get up ahead of the crowds and take a walk by myself- just me and the other introverts, and a bunch of seniors. You know how that goes.

But I’ve also found another advantage to getting up early, an unintended but fun side bennie, is that the locals who own dogs like to bring them out in the morning.

There’s a small number of feral cats I’ve seen in the early morning hours as well. As far as I can tell they’ve been part of this area for a long time, because I remember seeing them last time I was here too. They are chubby and friendly and hang out at the hotels and condos, and if you’re up early enough, you can see them hanging out on the boardwalk.

If you’re going to be a feral cat, this is the place to do it. By 9 am, the mega triple strollers and groaning coolers are congesting this path and the kitties retreat back behind the hedges. But in the quiet morning hours, it’s the perfect place to hang out and say aloha to the occasional passer-by.