Sunny with a Chance of Clouds

My husband and I went to Virginia Beach this weekend. It’s the third time we’ve been there in three years. We’ve seen dolphins each time!

It feels wonderful to be at the beach. The warm sand, the roaring waves, the blue sky.

In the case of Virginia – the people watching is fantastic! We went Friday evening as many folks were leaving, and the seashore wasn’t too crowded. We went back Saturday morning – got there at about 9:30am – and there were plenty of places to set up our chairs. But as an hour passed, the beach began to fill up. Many people had large canopies, and there were lots of little children digging in the sand and running from the waves. So many people to watch playing in the water, riding surfboards, dogs chasing balls, distant parasailing.

We can’t help but compare Virginia Beach to the beaches we used to frequent in Florida, when we lived there four years ago. Less commercialization. Less crowds. More seashells. More sunsets.

We lived in Fort Myers, and the congested tourist town of Fort Myers Beach was 45 minutes away. It was busy, with one main road going between all of the T-shirt and surf stores, passing the ice cream shops and umbrella-ed picnic tables. But once we got off the main drag, there was plenty of room.

There were other wonderful beaches, too. Delnore-Wiggins Pass State Park. Lover’s Key State Park. The beaches on Sanibel Island. Little Hickory Beach (our favorite).

On all of these beaches, we enjoyed watching the various birds instead of people.

And there was a huge advantage of facing the Gulf of Mexico – those western sunsets. We’d try to catch the notorious green flash as the sun hit the horizon. And everyone on the beach waited for the sun to go down. I was surprised the first time when all the people began to clap as the sun dipped past the ocean, but I quickly learned to join in. And I marveled at how God gave us this show every night!

I think we prefer Florida, but any beach – including a crowded one – is a good place to be!