Sandbar Exile

 

Had ChatGPT recreate what I saw. It's pretty close but the sandbar was longer.

Back in September my wife and I were returning from Florida after having spent a week visiting the Mouse and his friends. My motivation for being on this trip is, of course, my wife who is one of those “Disney Adults” some complain about. She’s always had a thing for Disney but her enthusiasm now is mainly a leftover from us taking our kids there back when they were small. 

I’m lukewarm at best about Walt’s creation now. Whatever “magic” existed for me has been smothered by decades of corporate greed. The goose that used to lay all those golden eggs was cooked long ago with the carcass cut into pieces and sold off at outrageous prices. At some point there’ll be a reckoning for the grossly charming and overpaid corporate personalities along with the swine-like shareholders but that’s in the future.   

But all things considered, it wasn’t a bad trip, the crowds were manageable and while we naturally paid an arm and a leg for the experience, I was able to unwind and relax. No, it wasn’t my idea of a perfect vacation but take what you can get these days. 

But it was on the drive home when I saw something that would have made Jimmy Buffett smile. 

Somewhere around northern Florida or southern Georgia we were on a bridge crossing an estuary when I glanced to my right. Someone had grounded a jon boat on a nice sized sandbar and set up one of those beach cabana shade tents. Naturally, since I was driving I was only able to look down at it for a second or two, but I noticed there was someone sitting in a chair under the shade. Beside that person was an open cooler. 

I haven’t a clue if that person was just the first to arrive and was waiting for others. Or did they just feel the need to get away from everyone and decided to use that sandbar for a short, self-imposed exile from the world?

I can’t overstate the urge I felt to slam on the brakes and stop to take a picture of the scene below me. But we were on I-95 with oodles of traffic behind us, so it wasn’t possible. Now that I’m back in the real world, I think about that person on the sandbar sitting under a cabana drinking a cool beverage way too much to be healthy.