Updates from an undisclosed beach location...

Right now I feel a bit like something out of a Hemingway story, save for the depression and firearms, see I’m writing this to you from the deck of an old southern manor house. A grand affair, blocks from the beach, it’s great brick pillars frame Matisse and I as we type away tonight. It’s once mighty edifice now worn a bit at the edges from the ravages of time and too many tourists, the place has a sort of comfortable worn feeling about it. Worn it may be, the food is decadent and the beer is always cold. From our second story vantage point were we can watch the world pass by, parents herd their sun burnt offspring back to civilization, optimistic college boys make one last play for that elusive island girl all the while the ever present ocean stirs in the distance.

No civilization for us just yet, a few more days of blessed vacation for us still.

Our days have been remarkably relaxing, I dare say frighteningly so. Sun, surf, good food and very cold beers. When not out, toes in the warm white sand, we escape the heat and crowds and retreat back to the manor’s grand balcony or better yet, to the air conditioned decadence of our room. Did I mention the four posted bed in said room?

Yesterday I got to watch my first tropical rainstorm up close and personal. Sitting upon this same porch, Matisse noted the coming dark clouds rolling off the water towards us. In minutes the once hazy blue sky turned an ominous black and then opened up with an explosion of light. Lighting so close that you felt the ruble of thunder mere moments after the blinding flash, loud enough to feel it shake your bones. Next came the rain. Living in Seattle I’m very used to rain but this, this was new. In a moment the air went from dense and charged to filled with water. Great sheets fell from the sky, flooding the hard packed streets and flooding the gutters. The tall palm trees in front of us swayed about madly as the sky unloaded upon us. Safe in upon our deck, we sat back and marveled at the sudden force of nature around us.

As rain as warm as bath water filled the sky Matisse leans over to me and purrs, “You know the local tradition here is that whenever one of these storms blow in you are supposed to head for cover and fuck.”

“Oh really now?” I respond with a grin, “a conscientious tourist must always respect the local customs and traditions…”