Clearwater Beach

We had decided last night that today would be our beach day, but we wouldn't be in a hurry in the morning since we enjoyed just hanging out together yesterday morning. When I opened my eyes and lifted the blinds, I saw dreary gray skies and lots of fog. Hmmm. I got my phone and check the accuweather forecast. It said sunny and 0-2% chance of precipitation so I didn't give up hope. I got up and fed Heidi and took her for her walkaround.

As we had our coffee and breakfast, I looked outside and it was raining. :o( Thankfully, it didn't last long. We decided we would go in faith that the weather report really was accurate. I sent Brighton over to the campground office to ask if there was somewhere that we could ice for our cooler and he came back riding in a golf cart with a camp employee who brought him to get the cooler and take it back for the filling with ice. They are so helpful and accomodating here. The lady was so nice. She gave Brighton candy canes for all of us. I asked her if they did anything here to treat the fire ants and she said, "I can take care of that right now," and hopped out of the cart and grabbed a sprayer and started spraying all of our growing mounds around our campsite. Wow! I should've asked a couple of days ago about those. VERY nice and impressive customer service here.

We loaded our picnic lunch and some sand toys into the back of the Yukon and set out. Clearwater Beach, according to Googlemaps is a 49 minute drive away from our campground. It was still gray, but a couple of times during the drive, the sun peaked through the clouds and I had to put my sunglasses on, boosting my hope. By the time we arrived at the parking lot at the beach, it was clearer still. We had to find a restroom right away and the kids changed into their swimsuits there since I know that everytime we go to a beach they get completely sandy and wet.

We walked out onto a gorgeous white sand beach that was the softest sand I've ever felt. We got down to the water and the sun was fully out and the day was heating up. The water was joltingly cool and then you got used to it rather quickly and it felt great. Mom realized right away that she would prefer it if we had some shade to enjoy the day with since some meds make her more sun sensitive these days. There was hardly anyone on the beach and we snatched up a cabana and a couple of beach chairs. Someone comes by and you pay either for the full day or for as little as two hours. We chose two hours, but since we didn't have the cash on hand, he said he'd come back by and we really ended up with closer to 3 and a half hours for the price of 2. It was an absolutely wonderful day! Highs of about 79 degrees, nice breeze. We ate our picnic food and it tasted great. The ice in the cooler kept everything really refreshing.

Superstrong boy carries water from surf to castle area!

The boys loved building with the "moldable" sand.

Kids loved saying they swam in the Gulf of Mexico.

Our timing was off, but it was fun trying to get this shot. Spencer is such a high flier! He was pretty much off the ground in every frame!



On the way home, we looked for a smoothie place and while Tom, the gps, was guiding us back to the RV park, we used my google gps to guide us to Tropical Smoothie Cafe where Mom treated us all to huge yummy smoothies to sip for our long (meaning busy, stop n'go) freeway drive home.

At the trailer, we cleaned up, ate dinner and relaxed and SO enjoyed our gift of time spent together.