I Wish I Were Here...

After several days in a row of frigid temperatures, and skies that alternate dumping sleet, freezing mist and snow?

I am seriously ready for a little daydreaming about the beach.

Which led me to think about so many of the great trips our family has taken through the years for vacations.  One of our favorite spots on the planet thus far has been Hilton Head Island, as much for the nod to nature that a lot of development has taken there as anything else.


There are several birding preserves on the island and nearby that are wonderfully uncrowded in the winter and early spring.  When the weather cooperates, you can hike around in just a sweatshirt and enjoy the beauty around you.  We stumbled across a blue heron nesting area in the preserve in Sea Pines one year, and spent about an hour watching the nesting birds and the alligators that were circling the nesting areas in the lake below -- it was fascinating stuff.  (This was before The Peanut was born, though; getting that sort of chunk of quiet all at once these days is still a stretch for her -- so we take our nature in doses punctuated by rapid fire questions, answers, and then more questions.  Which is its own fun, isn't it?)

That is often what I go back to in my mind's eye when I'm in need of a relaxing deep breath moment.  That or the times I've gotten to walk on the beach all by my lonesome, either early at dawn or at sunset usually, with just the scrunching sounds of my footsteps on the friable sand, the call of the gulls overhead, and the crashing of the sea...and nothing else.

Where do you go for your "Calgon, take me away" mental breaks?  We all have those days, so where is your "relaxing place" when you need to get away, even if only for a short brain break in a miserable day.  Do tell...