Day 32 - It's Always Vacation Here

You Sometimes Forget...

That other people pay good money and use their PTO to vacation where you live.

It's honestly easy not to be grateful that an 8-minute drive can put you in a pool on a beach where families from the Midwest who have saved up all year are spending a week of their lives to make memories.

But today that feels different.

Leaving the cold of Pennsylvania, where the 39 degree weather, windy and mixed with rain, was just hitting my face just two days before reminded me that I love where I currently live.

And that's where my mind is at after I grab a coffee, spend the morning with my wife and dog, and then pack up my gear to head to the pool.

Today it's in the high 70s when we arrive, check in with the lifeguard, a younger man today, and head over to find a lane.

We arrive around 10:30, a risky proposition as I have a meeting to run at 12:15. And it turns out to be an unfruitful one in terms of the swim. We lay on the lounge chairs for about an hour waiting for a lane to open, but to no avail. The elderly seem to be able to swim as many laps as they have years.

We leave and tell the lifeguard we will be back. "No worries" he says as he adjusts the middle bouys. The rope has become stretched and he is working to rectify that so that he doesn't receive another complaint from the gray haired woman that just departed.

She seems to not understand the laid back vibes of the area. She'll get it though.

We drive back across the bridge, the water flat as a pane of glass, the only thing breaking the mirrored look is the boat traffic.

To our left are a dozen or so sailboats, their white sails reflecting a mid-day sun. It's a youth "Learn-to-sail" event, something that Ohioans like myself never had an opportunity to experience.

We get home in time to make a quick egg sandwich before I get on the meeting.

An hour later and we are back in the car, headed back towards the sand and waves, and hopefully an open lane or two.

We arrive to an empty pool, with exception of a few young children learning how to dog paddle on the far end.

'I'm not far from that' I think as I change back into my jammers and find the lane farthest from the wandering eyes of those that just came to lay out.

I'm not a confident swimmer, and for good reason. I don't want to share lanes, mainly because I can barely complete a lap. Hell who am I kidding, I can only complete about 20 meters right now, and that's being gracious.

I start with my kicks, fins on, hands outstretched, body position somewhere between a water logged tree trunk and a corpse.

This continues for awhile as my wife swims laps around me.

I cover about 800 meters like this before switching to some freestyle practice.

Practice is what I need but today I can barely get two to three breaths before I am sucking in water and stopping to start again.

This is much harder than I thought it would be, and today I am frustrated to no end.

The sun is shining though, and after 400 meters of additional struggle, I pull myself from the pool and lay on a chair to dry.

There is something about the sun that can always change your mood, and right now it is doing it's work.

I am leaving the pool in a good mood. For being able to have these experiences, for being able to challenge myself, and for being able to live in an area where I can do this on a Thursday afternoon.

As the Dirty Heads exclaimed, "Ay, ay, ayy, I'm on vacation, Every single day 'cause I love my occupation"...