A Week With Friends

I use to refer to our friends as new friends, those we have met since full timing, and old friends who are our friends in Gillette. Its not that the old friends or the new friends are any more or less, it was just a way for me to keep some order. The distinction, for me at least, has blurred now to simply friends.
The weather finally warmed here and so our thoughts turned to fishing and canoeing. Renita and I have been anxious to go beach combing on the spoils. There we hoped to find beach glass, shells, and maybe even some fossils, like our rock friends Jerrold and Linda shared with the society.
Both Val and Rosie agreed to accompany us on a day of beach combing and so we launched our canoe and kayaks at the Lighthouse Trails park. The wind was blowing from the east and we fought both the wind and a strong incoming tide to paddle to the Lydia Ann Channel. There a series of high bluffs marked the spoils where material had been dredged up to deepen the channels and where the promise of finds drew us.
As we neared the shore it surprised us to see a beach almost covered with shells It was obvious that no one had shelled in the area and so we walked and shelled and even found some nice beach glass. Renita did find a piece of fossilized bone and so it was really pretty neat!
The girls continued to search as I fished but the fish were pretty uncooperative. Some whiting stole my bait and I finally did catch one on my 5/0 circle hook. Jelly fished floated by and as we paddled we were amazed to see so many large white jellies, their bells full of water while swimming but collapsed along the sand.Renita spotted one with a red fringe on the mantle and we wondered what it meant?
The next day the wind blew stronger and George and I went to the south jetty. There we hoped to hook a big redfish or black drum but they didn't cooperate. I did catch a large sting ray and some small sheepshead but the days entertainment consisted of
watching jelly fish and ships and loggerhead turtles.
No one really did much, fishing wise, even though a number of large redfish had been caught the day before. The spring breakers have started to arrive but we made it onto the ferry in pretty quick time.
Another day and more friends as we had lunch with Bob and Molly and Howie and Norah and Tom and Pauls, just to name of few of the escapees athat gathered together at China "Eh", as a Canadian friend describes it. We enjoyed the buffet and each others stories of travel and adventure.
Another day we got a chance to visit with Jim and Nancy,(Running Down Our Dream). They are heading to Louisiana and their favorite rv park, Betty's. I warned Jim that if they went back to many times he would turn into a "Cajun Coonass", a term that a Grand Isle Resident used to describe what can happen to people that visit there to often.
We talked of our future plans and trips and discussed going to Alaska, but not this year. We also talked of the many places we have been, since fulltiming, and how it has allowed us to renew so many friendships with people we have exchanged Christmas cards through the years.
I often use the phrase, "We have been truly blessed," and its not a phrase that I came up with but a phrase heard many times from another friend, Frank Sanders. It really describes the many people we have met as we travel down the road in a lifestyle that most can't understand. Clear skies.