Sand and surf, dolphins and starfish
This last Saturday I overslept.
It put a bit of a wrinkle in my plans.
See, Jess and I were planning on hitting the beach, and I had an errand I was hoping to get done that morning. I didn’t really have time, though, so to the beach we went!
There’s a nifty little park not too far from the apartment. It has a water park for the kids, camp grounds, nature trails, boat and kayak rentals at the lake, and beach access - very cool place to go! The first date that Jess and I went on was renting a double kayak and paddling around the lake, so I thought it might be fun to revisit that.
The weather disagreed.
However! Not ones to be easily deterred, Jess and I drove over to the beach access and made our way down to the sand under an overcast, drizzling sky. Not really optimal beach weather, but it really cuts down on the possibility of sunburn and reduces the number of people at the beach. We left our shoes up on the beach and made our way down to the surf, and had just gotten our feet wet when I saw something black and pointy and moving sticking up out of the water about 100 yards out.
OMYGAWDSHARK!
Just kidding! They were dolphins! It was kinda hard to tell from the shore, but there had to be at least two groups of them, with one group having 8-10 dolphins in it. They were just swimming along parallel to the shore, breaking the water every so often in that non-jump that dolphins do. I’d never seen dolphins off our beach before, so it was very awesome. Both of us were wishing we had a boat or a kayak so we could go out where they were.
As we were walking up the beach, we noticed something else that I hadn’t seen on the beach before - starfish! Hundreds of starfish had washed up onto a small section of beach, and many of them were still alive; we could pick them up and see the little appendages on their arms wiggling about in the air. I think between the two of us we probably tossed about 30 or so back into the ocean for another chance.
After some more wading the smell from the nearby cookouts was becoming very enticing, so Jess and I headed up to Chili’s for lunch - burgers for us both! I had something with blue cheese, and Jess had one with mushrooms on it. So very yummy.
After lunch we curled up for a nap, but that only lasted an hour or so before I had to go take care of some work stuff. Boooo, work. But…. I also got to go run my errand. Yay errand!
Work done and errand accomplished, I headed back to Jess’ house to drag her out of bed. She didn’t want to get up, but after much persuasion (read - tickling of the feet) she crawled from her bed. We headed back down towards the beach, except this time our destination was a store - Kilwin’s! This store was also part of our first date! Jess got some ice cream and I grabbed a chocolate shake, then we wandered around for a bit nibbling our treats before heading down to the sand.
Dusk was starting to fall - there were no dolphins or starfish on this part of the beach, just groups of people milling around. Jess and I strolled up and down the sand a bit, chatting and contemplating the oddity of the sand bar while the sun went down. After about 30 minutes or so we began wandering back to the car and wound up stopping just before the boardwalk that crossed the dunes. I wriggled a little box out of my pocket, said “I didn’t plan the dolphins and starfish, but I totally planned this part”, showed her the engagement ring that I’d picked up earlier, and asked her to marry me.
She totally said yes. 
