That Stuffy Head Feeling

This photo was taken at Ocean Beach on October 2. The morning was misty and moist when I got up to go to the pool for a swim. I needed to go for a swim because I was about to go out of town for a few days, and I didn't think I'd be able to find a place to swim where I was going, or the time to actually get one. Still, even though I knew I needed to do it, I found that my enthusiasm was sadly in short supply. It was so hard to get myself into the pool that morning--I felt cold, and while I knew that once I started swimming that I would warm up, it took sitting on the side of the pool for a good five minutes to convince myself to take the plunge, already. I was so glad that I did--the endorphins kicked in when I was showering off afterward, and I had that great sense of well-being you get when you know that you've done something good for yourself that you were resistant to but did anyway. I had to fight for it though--that's what surprised me.

My hope was that after breakfast, the sun would come out and warm things up for our walk, but it was still kind of misty outside when my husband and I finally went out around 11:30 in the morning. We needed our jackets because it was cool, but we didn't mind. At first, when we got to the beach, we thought that we might not be able to get a parking place, there were so many cars! What in the world was going on? The beach was full of people with different colored t-shirts, in groups as if they were teams. There were people all over the place, walking along the water, and walking on the beach. There were tents and banners, and a lot of excitement with people energetically digging in the sand. We were walking past the annual sand castle contest at Ocean Beach. I saw a team of excited children from the elementary school a few blocks away from our house, wearing their "Robert Louis Stevenson" shirts with a great deal of pride, smiling and laughing.

I took this photo from the Cliff House as we were returning from our walk and it was still foggy around 1:30 in the afternoon. I hoped to post something a week ago Saturday, but simply ran out of energy and time. I was too busy living life to be blogging, I guess! I was also getting ready for an early morning flight the next day, and had to pack. More about that later, but I simply wanted to post this tonight. I haven't been back in the pool since the 2nd, but not because I haven't wanted to. Sometimes your best laid plans go astray. I came back from my trip with a virus and have to wait till my ears clear up to swim. I haven't felt like doing very much since last Thursday, when this virus caught up to me and knocked me off my feet. At some point, I hope to swim. Right now, my eyes are watering, which is about as "swimming" any of me is going to get, for a while, I suppose.