Thursday, July 12, 2012

white sand + blistering sun bliss, 11 across.

im pretty sure that anything my mom said she loved, i immediately realized was the most amazing thing ever and cataloged in my top all time things i will forever and ever love list. like the beach. although there is no such thing as a nice beach in texas, such is the mighty power of mothers that i have always loved the beach because my mom loved it so.

every once in a while, usually in the summertime, which my mom had off because she had chosen to be a high school math teacher for the express reason of having summers off, my mom decided we were going to "disconnect for awhile." this is sort of like the same thing you're thinking of, except really different because there was hardly anything to disconnect from. chiefly, it meant that she disconnected the phone (this is something people did in the pre-internet, pre-cellphone era, wherein they manually pulled a long white cord out of its jack in the wall which connected it to a land line. primitive, i know), and we holed up in the house with a lot of books (we didn't have tv either) and possibly two or three dozen chocolate chip cookies. i know what you're thinking. let's all go back to my childhood, pronto.

but some summers, if money wasn't too tight, as it often was, we would take a trip down to corpus christie for a few days. i remember one time in particular, on a whim, she loaded up our no cruise control black bronco II with a cooler full of lunch meat, sandwich bread and milk and we took off like fugitives (in the day), chasing our freedom to the beach, disappearing into the sun flares.

we only stayed a few days. what i remember: admiring the genius of a kitchenette in the room, mum waking early to walk on the beach alone, the horrible, swirling, squelching, quick-sand holes of tiny crabs appearing one by one as the surf receded from the shore, knowing that the beach was the best place ever.

still to this day, the perfect vacation to me is on a beach.

so in june as a post-graduation celebration we took a trip down to an island off the coast of cancun in mexico called isla mujeres. it is tiny and somewhat secluded but with the most amazing beaches ever. truly. i have not seen the sand so white, the water so crystal clear and refreshing and calm, the fish so friendly, the palm trees so fluffy, the locals so nice, the dogs so free in nary ever a beach before.

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this is the beach at our hotel. the water here is about at my shins, like 50 feet out! that is like perfection times 50!

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our hotel was located on the top left corner of north beach, which was the best location on the island. we basically had this little strip of sand all to ourselves (and some german girls who had tanned themselves into another race). the perfect day: spending all day long on one of these pallets + nachos, pina colada and book.

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we saw an older woman posing glamour-shot-style for all her photos. i decided to do it too.

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loverboy is not as keen to lie around all day like a bum so sometimes i had to follow him around the island. at least there's only so much you can do in five miles of land.

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we were forced to disconnect a little: there was no tv or internet in our room. and obviously, no long-distance phone calls.

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fresh orange juice everywhere! and golf carts! to drive! just for us! for 24 whole hours!
(finally finding something mechanical/technological to bond with was loverboy's favorite part)

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loverboy at his favorite meal, olivia's mediterranean restaurant.

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isla mujeres: 5 miles long, 1 mile wide, 8 miles from cancun is sort of where i'd like to be right now again.

even if we were powerless to find out something really important we were arguing about that i now can't remember but it was really really important and then had to face the prospect of just never knowing (it was exactly like this).

traumatizing for the first few nights, but eventually you get used to it, promise. i'm even thinking about starting a disconnection week every year in our house. shhh. it's a surprise. ;)

9 comments:

  1. Looks amazing! I spent a weekend in Port Aransas in June, and while I appreciate Texas beaches for what they are, I'm with you... Texas could neeeever compete with a beach like this. :)

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  2. oh gosh i know. i should have said: to me, any beach anywhere is awesome, but there is something to be said for the Caribbean!

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  3. What I like about this post:
    1)Love the pictures (esp the silhouette of the wooden stilts)
    2)I practice disconnect vacations too, high five.
    3)"tanned themselves into another race" <-laughs

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  4. thanks daniel! yes, high five on the disconnect. i really think we are becoming too dangerously identified with our digital selves, so disconnecting is good, even if really hard! as evidenced by my inability to just go to bed without getting online...:)

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  5. oh, and i cant take credit for the silhouetted stilts picture (although i did take most of the rest) -- that was taken by jazz on his iphone :)

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  6. As always, these pictures are amazing! And making me so incredibly jealous for your relaxing vacation. I really do hate how "connected" I am all the time. I made a rule that the TV is not allowed on while Annabel is awake and we do our best not to be on our phones or other devices either while she's up, but we should be doing better than that. I miss reading! A good book on a beautiful beach sounds heavenly:)

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  7. i was doing ok with life and then you went and posted this! now i must have a beach vacation!!!!!!

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  8. haha, and where are your hawaii pictures, hmmm? :)

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