Resilience at the beach
On Vermilion Bay
We’ve arrived at a point in our travels I’ve yearned for since we set out 100 days ago. It’s not that I haven’t embraced our adventures in many beautiful places, especially the National Parks of Utah and Arizona. But knowing that we’d be parking ourselves at the beach in month four, I’ve allowed my thoughts to drift towards the sea at times. But without failing to appreciate where I was. It’s a danger of this lifestyle. You’re always planning for the next stop and contemplating what it will be like. It goes with the territory, metaphorically speaking. It also goes with the territories you traverse as you drive down the road. What’s next? Lately that’s been a double edged sword. I’ll explain shortly.
We’ve arrived at a glorious spot along the Gulf of Mexico, about 100 miles west of New Orleans on a little spit of land jutting out into Vermilion Bay, which empties into the Gulf. There’s a small beach here so we are getting “mostly” the full seaside experience, including of course the beautiful sunsets over the water. And it’s so quiet.
The salt air memories of my youth in Miami Beach have been rushing into my consciousness, like the tides rushing on shore each day. That wonderful sound of water lapping against the beach. The sound of birds circling the waters, looking for fish. The site of fish jumping out of the water. Even the sounds of boats, mostly fishing boats passing by, their engines grumbling as they pass.
As I’ve written about before, I’ve been seeking quiet and solitude. It’s been difficult the last month. In the National Parks in October and November I had to hike down trails, away from the hoards to find some semblance of quiet. But it was possible. The month of December was not possible. Big Cities like San Antonio and Austin were filled with noise. Even a visit to a small lakeside wooded park in East Texas was very problematic as nearby residents decided to shoot off semi-automatic rifles for 7-8 hours one day. It was a war zone. Needless to say, we left the next day and headed here. Then, on our second night here, by really bad luck, at 1:30 AM there was a Coast Guard search in Vermilion Bay with helicopters and the loudest air boat I’ve ever heard that was launched from the docks a few hundred yards from us. We were ripped out of our sleep and endured this for an hour. The next morning Joan and I talked about stopping our RV journey. Two horrendous experiences in three days left me frazzled. But after a morning of quiet here in this peaceful (mostly) place, we decided to continue on.
I don’t know what the future will bring as we continue our journey. But I do know that if I/we want to continue this adventure, I MUST have resilience. I’ll confess that it isn’t one of my strong suits. Although Joan reminded me that I have endured some rough times, as we all do. So I’ll hold on to that and believe that I can endure. That I can accept that this lifestyle has minefields, hopefully not real ones. That I can tell myself, at times of distress that this shall pass. I have PTSD now after those two nerve shattering experiences. That double edged sword of being excited AND nervous about our next stop is ever present. We’ve now decided that if we arrive and find a place to be noisy, we’ll move on.
So it’s onward to our next stop. It was supposed to be New Orleans, an RV park right in the French Quarter. Needless to say, after the tragic events of News Years, we won’t be going there. We found a State Park on the northern shores of lake Pontchartrain. Fountainbleu State Park, about 15 miles north of the city where we hope to find peace and safety and allow us to visit the city in small doses. Stay tuned.
