Respite

While many of us have been suffering the stress and strain of Albuquerque's city election, my partner in crime has been spending a week at a family reunion at a beach house on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Although Mary Ellen hails from the Salem, Boston and Syracuse NY areas, her family pitched in and rented a house on the sea in Corolla, NC for their get-together. She's been sending me photos all week, despite the slower than slow dialup connection she has out there. She sent two beauties this morning, of sunrise over the Atlantic. To help get our minds off the political muckety-muck, I thought I'd share them here.

Both shots show dawn at Corolla Beach, NC. (Click images to see larger versions.) The Outer Banks are a chain of narrow barrier islands midway on the Atlantic Seaboard, 90 miles south of Norfolk, Virginia. Corolla is the northernmost town on the island chain, north of historic Kitty Hawk (really Kill Devil Hills), where the Wright Brothers had their first powered flight.

Starting last weekend, Mary Ellen has been flying a kite (literally), riding a pink, fat-tired bike along the seashore, playing pool, getting tossed by the waves, sitting in a hot tub with a view of the ocean, reading, eating gourmet meals prepared by her brother-in-law, hanging with family, playing with a chihuahua named Barnum and a yellow lab named Bailey and watching Red Sox games. My only comfort is that my Chicago White Sox are beating her Boston Red Sox 2-0 in the baseball playoffs. Needless to say, Bosco the peach-faced lovebird is missing her. Peep peep.