Oh, I sort of forgot I had these photos from the morning of the 4th of July all loaded up here and ready to go! The symposium was FABULOUS and I'll try to write about that soon, but in the meantime, here are these!
Some of the CIBBOWS folks like to get together on Friday mornings for Friday early morning sunrise swims (FEMSS for short) during these long days of summer, and although I'm absolutely not an early-morning person I've always thought that sounded like a pretty cool way to start the day. I was never quite sure how the timing was going to work out with getting home, getting showered, and getting to work, so when a July 4th edition was announced, I decided that would be the perfect chance to give it a test run.
Unfortunately, surprise, surprise, I overslept my alarm and was finally rousting myself out of bed at 5:30, which was the exact time swimmers were supposed to be gathering for the swim. I thought about just turning off the alarm and sleeping in, but part of the appeal was that the weather had looked just perfect, so I ended up deciding that I could still check out the early-morning travel timing and maybe still get in at least a little bit of a swim.
As it worked out, I got there just as the swimmers were heading for breakfast. They invited me along for breakfast at the classic Parkview Diner, suggesting that I could do that and still go get my swim in with the CIBBOWS crew that was bound to start forming up at Grimaldo's Chair down at Brighton Beach. That sounded like a great idea, so that's exactly what I did, and it worked out really nicely.
Breakfast was delicious, and so was the water temperature as I set off on my swim an hour or so later. I'd gone swimming the weekend before, too, and was a little annoyed at myself when I measured out my distance afterwards and found I'd swum 9/10ths of a mile - if I'd just kept going a little longer! - so this time I set out thinking I'd do a mile. However, plans changed when I got to the same jetty as I'd swum to on Sunday and found a miniature version of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch had collected in the eddy behind it. Blech! There was a plastic bag there, of course, so I just grabbed that and started swimming around stuffing bits of plastic into it until I had a bagful, which I took up to one of the garbage cans on the beach.
That didn't take all that long, but when I finished that project I decided to bail on the mile, since I had plans for later in the day and needed to get home to shower and maybe grab a little short nap. Current whooshed me back to the chair and I gathered up my stuff and said goodbye. Perfect morning!
And the afternoon was fun too. Remember the Mummenschanz? I loved them on the Muppet Show lo those many years ago, never would've guessed that they were still around, couldn't believe it when my friend Mandy asked me if I wanted to go see them! We'd been planning on getting together for dinner and something on the Fourth, we decided to catch a Mummenschanz matinee for the and-something. They're still absolutely charming.
No fireworks, but really can't imagine a much better 4th of July!
All pix after this, click on any photo for a slideshow view.
Some of the CIBBOWS folks like to get together on Friday mornings for Friday early morning sunrise swims (FEMSS for short) during these long days of summer, and although I'm absolutely not an early-morning person I've always thought that sounded like a pretty cool way to start the day. I was never quite sure how the timing was going to work out with getting home, getting showered, and getting to work, so when a July 4th edition was announced, I decided that would be the perfect chance to give it a test run.
Unfortunately, surprise, surprise, I overslept my alarm and was finally rousting myself out of bed at 5:30, which was the exact time swimmers were supposed to be gathering for the swim. I thought about just turning off the alarm and sleeping in, but part of the appeal was that the weather had looked just perfect, so I ended up deciding that I could still check out the early-morning travel timing and maybe still get in at least a little bit of a swim.
As it worked out, I got there just as the swimmers were heading for breakfast. They invited me along for breakfast at the classic Parkview Diner, suggesting that I could do that and still go get my swim in with the CIBBOWS crew that was bound to start forming up at Grimaldo's Chair down at Brighton Beach. That sounded like a great idea, so that's exactly what I did, and it worked out really nicely.
Breakfast was delicious, and so was the water temperature as I set off on my swim an hour or so later. I'd gone swimming the weekend before, too, and was a little annoyed at myself when I measured out my distance afterwards and found I'd swum 9/10ths of a mile - if I'd just kept going a little longer! - so this time I set out thinking I'd do a mile. However, plans changed when I got to the same jetty as I'd swum to on Sunday and found a miniature version of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch had collected in the eddy behind it. Blech! There was a plastic bag there, of course, so I just grabbed that and started swimming around stuffing bits of plastic into it until I had a bagful, which I took up to one of the garbage cans on the beach.
That didn't take all that long, but when I finished that project I decided to bail on the mile, since I had plans for later in the day and needed to get home to shower and maybe grab a little short nap. Current whooshed me back to the chair and I gathered up my stuff and said goodbye. Perfect morning!
And the afternoon was fun too. Remember the Mummenschanz? I loved them on the Muppet Show lo those many years ago, never would've guessed that they were still around, couldn't believe it when my friend Mandy asked me if I wanted to go see them! We'd been planning on getting together for dinner and something on the Fourth, we decided to catch a Mummenschanz matinee for the and-something. They're still absolutely charming.
No fireworks, but really can't imagine a much better 4th of July!
All pix after this, click on any photo for a slideshow view.
2 comments:
I think swimming around and collecting garbage made up for some of the distance. Thank you for doing that.
Yeah, I couldn't just swim on by that! :)
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