We used to think I was the only one in our household with a jury-duty-criminal-past….. but noooo. When last we wrote, Judy had received a jury subpoena and rescheduled her date. They told her she would receive another summons before the rescheduled date, but that didn’t happen, so Judy didn’t show for jury duty. The following Saturday, guess what.. the replacement summons, dated in December, arrived. So in a show of good faith, Judy showed up the following Monday at the courthouse, summons in hand, to report for jury duty (on the wrong day). Her efforts were not well received. Not only did Judy not get to do her jury duty, the jury clerk was so offended that Judy would reschedule then not show, she told Judy she would be reported to the judge and the judge would be giving her a call to tell her her fate. That was a week ago. No fate-defining telephone call yet. We’ll keep you posted.
On the beach
Annie goes crabbing.
Port a
Well, Seattle winter weather has settled in on the Gulf Coast. Cool and wet as far as we can see. Heavy rain this morning, but we had an appointment in Corpus Christi, so we unhooked the utilities and took the coach in for chassis service. They determined we need one new shock absorber, but it’s a Bilstein, not one they have in stock. So, after a day driving around in the Jeep while they had the motorhome, we’re back at Gulf Waters. When you’re on a trip, stopping at night then driving off again the next morning, you settle into this nice rhythm. It’s all so easy. When you stop for a week, it takes a little more time to get ready to go when it’s time to leave. When you’ve been somewhere for a month, it’s like you put down roots. It takes a whole day to get everything sorted out and put back where it needs to be for traveling mode. We’ve been here a month, but we didn’t have to go through that much today, though. We just unhooked and left a bunch of stuff in our spot at Gulf Waters. We considered going on to somewhere else tonight, but realized one of the things we left at our site while we drove in separately to the repair shop, was the tow gear for the front of the car. We didn’t want to go anywhere else separately, so we just came back here. One hundred twenty-seven days until the Americas Cup Challenger Series.
Along the way
Sometimes you don’t see any black skimmers at all.
They like to hang out in flocks on the beach. They always stand facing into the wind together.
To fish, they fly along the surface of the water with that oversize lower mandible right in it, and snap up anything they hit. Looks risky, but it works and it is graceful as all get-out, except for that part where their heads snap down when they hit something. They’re so good at it. We’ve never seen one of them hit a stick and do a header into the water.
They like to hang out in flocks on the beach. They always stand facing into the wind together.
To fish, they fly along the surface of the water with that oversize lower mandible right in it, and snap up anything they hit. Looks risky, but it works and it is graceful as all get-out, except for that part where their heads snap down when they hit something. They’re so good at it. We’ve never seen one of them hit a stick and do a header into the water.
The birds…
The birds are back. All the usuals. The beach is packed with sanderlings; swarming with small plovers. Every day is different. Warmer weather. Temperature in the fifties doesn’t feel cold like the thirties and forties did.