Exploring the Area...and the Beach

On Sunday we gave our Realtor the day off (aren't we generous?) so that he could do some research on available homes that was more specific to our tastes and so that we could investigate some more of the communities that we had considered moving to, but hadn't yet had time to drive through and explore.  Everything that we explored on Friday and Saturday were inland towns.  We dedicated Sunday to exploring beach towns. 

 

We started the day by driving around and looking at elementary and high schools.  You can't tell everything by the appearance of the school, but first impressions do make a difference.  Like everything else we've seen, we saw some really nice, updated schools with cool facilities and great mascots.  And then we saw some that look a bit like prisons.

 

When we got ready for a break from the car and needed to stretch our legs, we went to a 2 mile beach path for a really gorgeous run. 

 

 

 

After our run we took off our shoes and took a short walk over the sand dunes and into the ocean.  It was freezing, but beautiful.

 

 

 

 

 

Dave wrote a message in the sand:

 

 

 

 

 

Then it was back in the car to look at yet more towns.  There are so many towns in the area that it has taken us a long time to see all of them.  While we were out, we ran across a couple of open houses and stopped to take a look.  We saw a terrible house, with a great yard.  Dave says he loves the house, but my theory is that he was blinded by seeing so much grass outside.  The house needed a LOT of work.  And supposedly someone died in there so there's that.  We stopped at a 2nd open house, but when we saw that they were asking nearly $600,000 for the house we got right back in the car and drove off.  Same story at open house #3 when we saw the $1.2 million dollar price tag.  No need to tease ourselves like that.

 

After several more hours of driving we were ready to get out and stretch our legs again so we decided to try out another beach.  It had another great walking/biking/running path so we took a little stroll along the beach.  It was, as seems to be the theme, completely beautiful.  We saw a golden retriever out in the ocean for a long swim.  We saw a man tooling around on a huge unicycle.  We saw tons of people out walking, running, biking, grilling, and playing on the playground.  It wasn't crowded at all but there were plenty of people out enjoying the beautiful sunshine and 70 degree weather.

 

 

 

 

After enjoying the beach awhile, we got back in the car to head back to our hotel and relax for the night.  But...we couldn't go back without a stop at one of my Top Ten must try eateries, Yogurtland.  Tons of flavors of frozen yogurt, with a whole topping bar.  Build it yourself, pay by the weight.  They have tons of toppings as well, including fresh fruit, candies, cookies, nuts, and sauces.  It was just as delicious as I've always imagined!  Mine is pictured, but if you could see Dave's you would see that neither of us bothered with the fresh fruit...this was a junk food sundae all the way.

 

 

 

In 15 minutes our Realtor will be here, and we are heading out for House Hunting Day 2!