on the gulf

Today was Robin's last full day. We took off after breakfast on a lark and headed down to the coast at Matagorda. It's been a couple of years since I have been to the beach. We grabbed a tarp, some chairs and a cooler and headed south, about an hour's drive. They still let you drive on the beach at Matagorda and being a weekday, it wasn't crowded. We fashioned a shelter with the tarp off the side of the truck and spent the afternoon. We swam, built sand pyramids, looked for shells. A small blue crab was in the shallows settling itself into the sand and we rousted it out shrieking and dancing and laughing as it scuttled off. The sargasso seaweed was washing ashore. The powers that be used to scrape it off the beaches in the summer because it smelled and people didn't like it. Then the sand dunes became unstable. They've stopped doing that now and the dunes are once again healthy. Going to the coast has great restorative powers for me. It's so calming. I spent many summers and holidays on the beach while I was growing up.

Robin in her new clothes and shoulder bag 

that she made with a little help from me.

The Gulf of Mexico at Matagorda.

Our shelter for the day.

Small bits of shell on their way to becoming sand.

The pelicans patrolled the shore in groups of three to eight, sometimes settling onto the water in their clumsy fashion to fish. The indistinct smudge on the horizon line is an off-shore drilling rig. I counted seven in all, faintly seen.

Robin on the beach.

Sargasso seaweed. This stuff is very cool. It's a little eco-system usually. It's not unusual to see little shells and other small organisms taking shelter on it/in it. The sun was so bright I was having a hard time seeing the image on the viewer so most of the time I wasn't sure it was in focus.

This frumpy little alien followed me around all day.