The surfing part of my Florida surfing adventure was cut short due to injury. (For the full story - see my previous blog post "Rescued by NASA".) The short version is that my foot was sliced open by the fin of my surfboard while attempting an incredibly difficult maneuver, and I had to get three stitches to close up the laceration.
P.S. The "incredibly difficult maneuver" was just surfing, and most people who have tried it are not at all surprised by this outcome. Including me, if I'm being honest. :)
Anyway - the urgent care doctor told me that a foot with three stitches shouldn't go back into the ocean. That was disappointing. It made me wish I had swam and played in the waves a bunch more before surfing. I love the ocean, and the Space Coast is a gorgeous place to frolic in the Atlantic.
However, I couldn't be disappointed for long. It was still 82 degrees and sunny, and my AirBnB was only 15 minutes away from Canaveral National Seashore/Merritt National Wildlife Refuge. So on my fourth day in Florida I headed back there with the idea of sitting by the beach and doing some reading and writing.
As I explored a few more beaches within the preserve, I was once again struck by how much work had been done to make the beaches accessible. And of course I thought of Mike. He would have loved the natural, undeveloped beaches and the unique wildlife, and we could have seen it all together. In that moment of gratitude for the National Park Service, I knew I wanted to tell people about the excellent accessibility, and therefore leave breadcrumbs for another family. So I took a ton of pictures and videos - specifically of the ramps to the beach. Here is a sampling:
Some readers may be familiar with a blog that I kept up for a number of years, called Sojo Stories. At that site, I wrote about our family sojourns and how they continued even as Mike's ALS progressed. There are stories there about our trips to Mount Rushmore and Yellowstone, to Disney World, to Myrtle Beach, to a 7-day cruise of the Caribbean, and regional canoe and camping trips in Wisconsin, too. We were having so many adventures it was challenging to keep up with the writing! But I have been collecting memories and photos and documentation, and I will go back and write more of those stories.
It turns out I still have a passion for exploring and documenting places that are both beautiful and accessible. So - be they old or new - any accessibility-related stories will be posted there and linked here.
Perhaps my foot injury was a message from the universe. Perhaps I was meant to take a day and shoot video at each one of the 13 parking lots and ramps at Playalinda Beach. Perhaps someone reading this would be interested in sojourning to a gorgeous, untrammeled beach - as long as the facilities there meet their needs. Perhaps I should stop writing and share the link already...!
P.S. If you're headed to Playlinda Beach, will you let me know so that I can join you? My foot is almost healed and I promise - no surfing!
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