friday five: beach edition

I'm a little blog-post-crazy this morning, but, after posting my other two, found I couldn't resist this week's Friday Five on RevGalBlogPals.

Here goes:

1. Ocean rocks, lake limps? Vice versa? Or "it's all beautiful in its own way"?
It's all beautiful in its own way.  Oceans pretty much rock, but there's also little that can beat a pristine lake, high in the mountains.    Being a good Nebraskan, I'm also quite fond of rivers.  the Platte in particular.  (Bonus points if it's March and it's covered with migrating sandhills cranes.)  Being a southern Californian by choice, I'm drawn to the beach.

however: polluted oceans and lakes, industrial seaports, and contaminated rivers are lame.

2. Year round beach living: Heaven...or the Other Place?
Heaven.  When I first moved to San Diego, I felt like it was my duty to live by the beach.  I rented a little beach house two blocks from Ocean Beach, and loved it (except the parking and the loud parties on Saturday nights).  On still nights, I could hear the waves from my bed.  I suppose that was helped by my living in a rickety old 20's cottage, but it was still lovely.

3. Any beach plans for this summer?
Nothing dramatic, but I did got for a lovely walk on a pier yesterday.  (See 2 posts below)

4. Best beach memory ever?
Wow.  I have trouble with superlatives, 'cause there are just many good possibilities.  A pretty darn spectacular one was staying in a high-end yurt on the Big Sur coast with Matt before his last deployment--it was far-removed from development, and beautiful.

Driving the bit of the "lost coast" in northern California that is accessible by road, with my brother many years ago, was pretty fun, too.  Really, that was a pretty fun trip: I remember waking once in Oregon, to find that my brother had driven my car ONTO the beach, and we were headed directly for the water.  It was a startling wake-up vision.  He assures me he was going to stop, whether or not I woke up.

Then there's all the fun memories with friends: spring breaks past in Florida and South Carolina, bits of beach in Rhode Island and Texas, first visits in childhood...  Fantasies of beach living while walking the streets of Boston, eating ice cream.

Oh, but what can compare to snorkeling in Hawaii??!?

Geez.  Too hard a question.

5. Fantasy beach trip?

I have two primary sorts of beach trip fantasies:

one involving a long, relaxing vacation with my husband (who, in this fantasy, is also not in Iraq and out of the Army) somewhere beautiful and secluded

and

one involving a big beach house with lots of friends and plenty of time to hang out together

Bonus: Share a piece of music/poetry/film/book that expresses something about what the beach means to you.

Here's a picture from my North Carolina visit to Matt in April; I like that it feels like an invitation to future possibilities.