Saturday, August 26, 2006

Another Adventure

Yesterday we took off on another adventure...we headed out to Long Beach Island, the Jersey shore! Now, the shore is another place that I didn't really like. When I was younger, we would get in the car, drive to the shore, find a place to park, walk to the overcrowded beach or boardwalk, fight for a spot, watch for the beach tag checkers and then head home, all sandy and sunburned. Not my idea of a good time!

Well, yesterday we went to visit the teacher I worked with last year...and had a wonderful time! What a difference it makes when you're on a quiet, uncrowded beach with no boardwalk and a place to wash up and eat before you make that drive home. Sitting on the beach and listening to the ocean (instead of people yelling at their kids!) made me the most relaxed I've been in ages. Although, I did manage to get rather sunburned. The kids had a wonderful time and it was great to catch up with my friends.

Today I'm back to working on my churn dash quilt, which I've discovered isn't a churn dash quilt at all, but a shoo fly quilt! :o) Did a search on Blockbase and found my error. I'm putting the setting triangles on the ends of the rows and hope to have it together tonight and bordered by tomorrow. Once that's all done, I'll post a picture. For now I'll just enjoy the view of the ocean...on my computer!

10 comments:

Evelyn aka Starfishy said...

Ooohh, I just love an empty beach! And sunburns - I just have to THINK about the sun and I get burned - sunscreen is a good thing. Glad to hear that you had a good time.

Cheers!

Evelyn

quiltpixie said...

beaches without people are the ONLY way to do them I figure !

Finn said...

Your day at the beach sounds just about perfect...*VBS* And I guess a tat of sunburn isn't toooo bad a price to pay..*VBS*

Wouldn't it be wonderful if all the miserable vacations of our youth could be replaced one by one with a good, satifying one?? Sounds like a dream, but, hey, I'll vote for it!! Hugs, Finn

ForestJane said...

What is a beach tag checker?

Can you tell I'm from landlocked west Tennessee? lol

Melanie said...

Love the picture. Different perspectives of the ocean from different ages...I like that.
Melanie

Eileen said...

I used to love the Jersey shore when the kids were little. We'd try to get there at least once each summer. It's not so nice at the popular ones anymore.
I really like the look of your shoofly/churndash quilt.

Gail said...

Long Beach Island-oh, I remember it well, and fondly. As a kid, I loved going onto the Lucy Evelyn and I still have a thing for tall ships because of her. The lighthouse, the beachy smell. When I was about 8-10 a really bad hurricane hit the island. We had friends with property there and were among the first to be able to go onto the island after it hit. You can imagine how a youngster that age was impressed by the damage. Houses with sides ripped open, looking like huge doll houses; houses moved off of foundations into the roadway, another sitting out in the middle of the bay, only the upper story showing. The worst parts of the visits was always the long drive home to north Jersey, the parkway was always a parking lot and it took at least twice as long as it should have. The folks would bring cushions from our sofa, place them on the back floor so we had a 'bed' and could sleep all the way home. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

Darcie said...

Hurray for your new-found love and appreciation of the beach and the ocean! Sounds like a good time!

Susan said...

Sounds like a lovely day at the beach. Shoo-Fly and Churn Dash variations aren't all that different. There's a Churn dash almost like this, but it has the white in the middle and little colored squares next to that middle white square in each of those skinny pieces. If that comes through loud and clear, I can probably explain other things, too! LOL!

Mary Johnson said...

I always confuse churn dash and shoo fly blocks too - I like both!