First morning in Clearwater

As much as I love my daughter, as much as I love baseball, probably my favorite part about being in Clearwater is walking along the Gulf of Mexico in the morning. I just can't help myself. I come out for a walk and I think to myself, this is the best part of my day. This really has almost nothing to do with my daughter or the baseball or anything else were doing down here. It's just incredibly pretty and peaceful here. The sand is gorgeous the golf is placid and it's just really nice.

I know that sounds silly, because nice has turned into word that you use when you can't come up with any other compliment. That's too bad because nice is, well nice. It's especially pleasant right now, because of the circumstances of the last 12 hours or so. Not that anything bad happen, it just wasn't what I was hoping for or expecting.

Our flights went well, aside from my daughters having some difficulty getting to the airport. We arrived at the airport at almost exactly the same time, picked up the rental car with ease, and headed out towards the beach. The problem arose, because our hotel reservation had gotten somewhat messed up. This is partly my fault for changing it at the last minute, but somehow the hotel changed the reservation for two rooms into a reservation for one room.

After a few minutes of futile search for a hotel with two rooms, we decided that camping in together was our best plan. Both of us I believe had some serious hesitation about doing this. We've never done anything like that before, every time we've done this trip, and this is our third, we had our rooms. I like it that way. She likes it that way. Not an option in this case.

For a less than ideal situation, this one worked out fine. There was lots of college basketball on TV, we ate dinner in the room and found a mutually agreeable bedtime and wake up time. Although, since I'm incapable of sleeping past 7:30 or so, that involves my getting up and leaving at 7:30 then coming back at 9:15. So that's what I'm doing now, being out until I come back at the appointed hour.

Here's where I am now. I have three choices of walking from the hotel, South North or East. West takes me into the Gulf of Mexico. Today I opted for south which leads to a short bridge over to an island called Sand Key. I did a similar walk once before, when I was here by myself and was recuperating from a torn muscle. I remember how freeing it was to be able to walk that kind of distance.

Here's the view from the bridge. In the distance to the right of the 2 hotels on the left of the photo you can see pinkish building and then a medium-size building and a large whitish building we are staying in the medium-size one in between the two behemoths. 

By the time the day was over, according to my phone, I had walked 11.9 miles. Not bad for the first day.