Update From The Beach

Yesterday we drove out on the beach above Corolla. It was nice out there. The dunes are really cool. It is strange to see people out on the beach doing anything besides fishing... it has been so long since I have been at the beach during peak season. Usually when I'm here the only folks here are fishermen! The water is also much colder now than it usually is when I am here in November. I doubt the water is much warmer than 60 degrees right now.

I also got to see some of the wild horses yesterday. I only saw them from a distance, but two of the ladies from our group walked up the beach and were able to get pretty close to them. In fact they got pictures taken with them and autographs too.... OK there were no autographs, but there were pictures. My friend, David, drove up to pick up the ladies and he managed to get his picture taken with them too. We also saw some porpoises or dolphins, lots of pelicans, and something that I had never seen before - a whole flock (probably 40 or more) of Canadian geese sitting out on the ocean. They hung around until they saw the dolphins...

The SPF-40 seemed to do the job yesterday. No sunburn.

A big thunderstorm came up after we had been there a couple hours. That was sufficient to get us off the beach. It ended up raining most of the rest of the night. So to pass the afternoon we broke out Triopoli. For those who have not played Triopoly before it is a modification of Monopoly. But the truth be told it is probably not enough of a modification of Monopoly to have kept the creators from getting shut down for copyright infringement. It is almost impossible to find the game now.

But anyway the game is basically Monopoly on steroids. Up to 8 people can play and it takes hours. I have not ever actually finished a game to the bitter end. Instead of one board you have three concentric boards. I'll try to include a picture here in a little bit. There is a whole lot more property than in Monopoly and the stakes are higher. There are also two casinos in the game that can either save you or ruin you! They had almost saved me yesterday. I hit it big 5 times out of six with 100-1 odds.

Last night we enjoyed the best fajitas that I have had in a long time, got down with our bad selves to some 80s funk and 70s disco and played some billiards. A good time was had by all. David is the reigning billiards champ, but you need to look out for his dad who has been dubbed "the closer."

Today I'm not sure what we'll end up doing. Roughly half of our party has to leave today so we will probably go back down to the beach for them to get in one last huzzah before the long drive back home. There has been talk of going to see the movie Up. I'm looking forward to that. I've been wanting to see it ever since I first started seeing the trailers on Facebook. I'm also going to try to make my way over to see the lighthouse and the stuff around it today or tomorrow.

We also have two more games to play. My friend brought the Emergency! board game, which will have to be tried out. It doesn't look all that complicated, but well, it was my favorite TV show as a kid. I also brought Risk. I hope we'll take a shot at that too. I've only played it once, but had a good time even though I made the classic blunder - I got involved in a land war in Asia.

So that's what's new and exciting here in Corolla. I'll update again when there is something fun to report.