A Special Place

I wonder what most most people would do given a choice between a dinner of surf and turf served by a charming French waiter at a posh New York restaurant followed by a Broadway play getting rave reviews and a nightcap of Irish Cream on the rocks with the cast of the play in a swanky bar...or...a day on a remote beach looking for pretty rocks?  Just a minute, I’ll ask Karen.....She says “what time does the boat leave for the beach?”  Actually -- I’ll stick with her.  So, when Barry and Kathy Bracken invited us for an outing at one of their many favorite beaches, a scenic boat ride out of Petersburg, Karen was floating on more air than the boat was on water.

The beach exceeded Karen’s wildest dreams.  We had trouble reeling her back in for lunch.  The memory card on her digital camera almost burst with all the photos she squeezed onto it.  Her pockets bowed out of shape from so many stones stuffed into them and her shoulders sagged from the weight of the rocks filling her new “rock pack.”  Beginning the second we lured Karen back into the boat, all she could talk about was how to get back there.

With all the rocks Karen collected it’s amazing the raft ferrying us back to the boat stayed afloat.  The elevation of the beach headed another notch towards falling below sea level while atlases will need to be amended to raise the elevation of Petersburg a comparable distance.  Best of all, Karen positively glowed all day long.

Karen and the Brackens enjoying the fruits of seemingly endless Alaskan storms --  driftwood and rocks rounded and polished by the churning waters -- what more could anyone want?

                   Somewhere hidden on this beach is the NPR (near perfect rock).

                     "Treasure hunting" is more fun than an Easter egg hunt for Karen.

Now that she looks at her photos Karen asks herself how she missed this one and that one -- oh and that one.

              Just seeing the forest above the beach would have been enough reward.

Yes, Karen and I agree, sharing a day with good friends on a remote Alaskan island topped off with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (even one squashed flat by rocks) is far more luxurious than surf and turf in any restaurant -- even with a play and nightcap tossed in.