Halloween in Florida

After visiting the National Naval Aviation Museum we went for another long walk on the beach.  This time we were on Johnson Beach.  We walked east (away from the sun) for an hour or more and then walked back.  Most of the beach slanted gradually to the water.  Several spots had sandy cliffs at the water's edge and they ranged in height from a couple inches to three feet high.  We must have been there at high tide because the waves splashed in and knocked sand off the sand cliffs.  Sometimes chunks of wet sand would drop off and cover my feet.  Yesterday when I walked the beach I had blue jeans with the cuffs rolled up.  Those got wet.  Today I wore capris.  Those got wet too.  Shorts would have been a better choice.  Sometimes if a wave came in when I was right next to a cliff the undertow would almost tip me over.  I tended to watch the waves coming in behind me when I approached these sand cliffs to avoid the highest water.  We collected shells and examined the stuff we found in the sand.  Sometimes it's hard to tell if we were holding a piece of an animal or a piece of a plant.  After an hour or so of walking at a slant my ankles would get tired of walking on a slant and we'd turn back so the ankles could enjoy a different angle.  Now we were looking into the sun and could better see the waves as they angled in toward us.  All our footsteps were already washed away.  The sand is so white and the sun so bright it's hard to see.  The beach is so beautiful and so relaxing.  The air is fresh and the sand is so clean.  This sand is fine enough to fill an hour glass.  Up away from the shore the wind distributes the sand into tiny dunes.  The asphalt road out on this peninsula is partly covered with sand in some spots.  As we drove west from this beach we unknowingly crossed into Alabama.  We looked for a restaurant but chose a Publix grocery instead. It was Halloween night and I had to keep reminding myself of that because I saw some pretty strange people in the grocery store.  I really hope most of them were in costume!  We bought fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, basil, and sliced meat and had a picnic on the Alabama shore. By now the sun had set.  In the dark we ate our caprese salads with our bare hands and watched the visible white caps of the waves as they rolled in.  The sand was cold to sit on and it clung to everything so we had to be very careful not to get sand into our food.  I love caprese salad anyway but caprese salad on the shore in the dark is especially tasty. We drove back into Florida towards Pensacola.  We saw a few trick or treaters on the road.  These Florida kids are lucky. They don't have to wear winter coats over their costumes.  I saw an big orange blob in the sky and thought, "What kind of strange Florida abomination is this?"  Turns out it was a full, reddish-orange Halloween moon looking especially large right at the horizon.  I tried to take a picture but they didn't turn out probably because I was in a moving car.  This was a perfect Halloween moon and a perfect Halloween night.