wild kingdom

this morning, the air was clean(ish) and the sky was clear(ish), so young beatrix and i decided that today would be the day we’d visit fort desoto, which had been voted the #1 beach in all of the continental U.S.

unfortunately, the universe had other plans for us, and did its best to crap all over our best-laid plans.

young beatrix decided that today would also be a super day to try out a bunch of breakfast fixins she’d bought yesterday – specifically, a big package of thick-cut bacon (keep in mind that she has never, ever expressed an interest in thick-cut bacon before...and, therefore, has never prepared it before, either), eggs and hash-browns. she figured it would be a good idea to have a big meal before our day-long outing...you know, to give us energy for all that our field trip would entail. i said perhaps we should hold off on the BB (big breakfast) until another day so as to make the most of our time. she persisted. long story short: the bacon, which was too big for the pan, wound up charred beyond recognition in the middle and near-raw at the ends; the hash browns weren’t cooked long enough (despite being in their pan for longer than the suggested cooking time) and were mildly crunchy; and she gave up on the eggs. she did her best to eat as much of her meal as she could...which, unfortunately, then made her feel ill.

the morning trip to fort desoto was cancelled. enter pepto-bismol.

we decided to move the trip to the afternoon and go shopping this morning instead. that turned out just as well...which is to say, not well. we found nothing, ventured to disappointing stores and had the exact same lunch we had yesterday (the bacon turkey bravo sandwich at panera). we cut our losses* and came back to the condo to rest and snack before heading out again.

(*even the cutest thing EVER, a mother duck and her wee gaggle of ducklings, was cause for us to furrow our brows because we saw them as they tried to cross a major thoroughfare! they made it safely to the grassy median between four lanes of busy traffic, but neither my sister nor i wanted to travel back along that route lest we see that they didn't make it across the final portion of their trek.)

the intrepid beachcombers head out to fort desoto!
(please note the frightfully w-h-i-t-e skin on my arms and body...thank you SPF 30!)
after refueling on panera brownies (white-chocolate raspberry for me, caramel-pecan for young beatrix) and subjecting ourselves to the equivalent of a human sunscreen dip (seriously, we used a LOT), we hopped in the ‘cruiser and headed south. time for fort desoto! yeah, baby! it was time to re-start the fun!

yeah, no.

about 2/3 of the way there, we encountered An Idiot. in fact, all the drivers going in our direction encountered An Idiot. we were all on a busy, well-traveled two-lane road with virtually zero shoulder and leading onto a long bridge, and The Idiot had run out of gas right at the start of the bridge, thereby completely blocking all traffic behind his vehicle. the road was too narrow for anyone to go around, there were no stoplights to regulate the flow of traffic (i.e., to get oncoming cars to stop for a freakin’ second and let some of us go around The Idiot’s heap of junk (which it was)) and The Idiot, in all his Idiot-doofus glory, was walking along the side of the road, carrying an empty gas can and grinning like a fool as he surveyed the dozens and dozens (and growing) cars lining up behind his now-abandoned vehicle. [note: for those of you working on conjuring an image of The Idiot, just picture any twentysomething stoner you’d like: that’s him.] in hindsight, i should have taken his photo.

after a few minutes, oncoming cars began realizing the dilemma of those of us in the southbound lane, and every so often gaps would occur that would allow a few of us to scoot past and shoot evil looks at the empty jalopy. once we cleared the impromptu road block, it was smooth, clear sailing.

yay! we're entering fort desoto! wait, where is everybody?
in fact, it was eerily smooth and clear. completely empty was more like it. we only saw one other car as we wound our way along the lush, green (deserted) roadways leading into fort desoto.

seriously...where are all the people????
we parked our car in the virtually empty lot near the north beach. there was only one other car in the lot that could very easily hold several hundred vehicles. i thought it amusing that said other car was also a PT cruiser, so i took a photo to illustrate the vast emptiness.

see the yellow PT cruiser waaaaaay in the distance?
we were filled with hope as we walked along the path to the beach. i mean, this beach was, by all accounts we’d read and heard, breathtakingly amazing. gorgeous. beyond beautiful.

young beatrix...filled with hope!
yet, what we found, while very nice, was hardly the best beach we’d ever seen in our lives. the sand for the first several hundred yards was extremely rough and made up almost entirely of broken shells. (this made the walk back to the car incredibly painful.) we finally hit the much-ballyhooed “soft white sands,” but it didn’t last long. the waters were very choppy and rough, and there were only a handful of beachgoers scattered around. we saw some herons and other water fowl, but were mightily disappointed that this was all there was to be had at fort desoto. we debated going to the east beach, and agreed that we’d drive there and see if it was worth getting out of the car and further scarring the soles of our feet in the name of beachgoing.

needless to say, we arrived at the equally vacant east beach, hemmed for about a half-second before we hawed our way back to the condo for an evening swim and a filling dinner.

alas.

tomorrow...OMG...tomorrow we’re spending the afternoon with moob in sarasota! shopping and eating and, of course, taking pictures. (moob, fix your cowlick!)