Cool Max Celebrates Christmas on the Texas Coast

I know, a new post is well past due. Sadly, I have done none of the things I usually report in this space. Most of my hiking has been at the mall or the Target parking lot as I shop and try to stay out of the rain. Oh yeah, throw in occasional hikes to the airport parking lot.

I have done a minimal amount of walking on the beach, working around the rain and fog, as shown above. This was taken in the middle of the afternoon last week, but the reality of the fog issue hit me Sunday night as I was returning from Stillwater, Oklahoma. The fog began to gather as I drove through Lake Jackson and became impenetrable as I crossed the bridge to Surfside, right on queue. Not to worry, I’ll catch up on my sleep and by the time I’m up it will have burned off, right? Wrong! By this afternoon the fog was still around. I didn’t take any pictures today, but if I had they would have looked like the ones above. As for wildlife, last week a stray cat followed me down the beach, and today it was a stray dog.

Fortunately, I’ve had better plans. My family visited Surfside and we celebrated Christmas. It was a quiet affair, reflecting my lack of hosting and social skills, but it was good to enjoy the company and catch up. And, I traveled to Stillwater to catch the graduation from Oklahoma State of my adopted son, Jay. It was great to see the first of “the boys” graduate and I got to spend some time with my son Jon as we traveled.

I did have a couple of nice days on which to be Joe Cool and catch a few rays. Hiking the Rockies did nothing for my tan! I had to borrow sunglasses someone left in my car (Thanks, Mike.), since the flip-ups I normally wear over my prescription glasses don’t register on the cool scale. Here’s hoping for some more nice weather, although the weather man seems to be indicating it will get worse before it gets better. I knew it wasn’t July, but I was hoping for more sun and less chilly wind and moisture.