Beach 2016: Thursday

This year in preparation for Beach Week, we did something different -- Grayson made intracoastal kayaking reservations for anyone in the group who wanted to go.

The moms and grandparents stayed back at the house with the younger kids and others who opted out, but they ended up with a great group of adventurers for the morning.

They got a great tour of some coastal Carolina marshland, some of them in single kayaks, some in doubles.

Have you ever kayaked before? Looking at these pictures makes my shoulders hurt. I remember the feeling I have about eight hours later.

Their guide took them out to a sandbar and told them to get out -- they were at what they call "Birthday Cake Island," named that because when each time you take a step it feels like you're walking in icing. I CAN ONLY IMAGINE.

I'm totally sure there's nothing grody in that Birthday Cake Island sludge.

The interesting thing about sending all those people kayaking was that it left such a skeleton crew back at the beach.

I only had two kids with me.

TWO KIDS, INTERNET!

Not since 2008 have I seen the likes of that.

And the day was just gorgeous. The clouds were so wispy, the sky so blue.

And since there weren't 480 of US out on the beach, it was -- dare I say -- kind of QUIET.

Amelia was having fun riding the waves on her stingray float, and Nick was enjoying being The Only Big Brother around to help her.

They were quite a team, and he was so careful to make sure she didn't fall off, even when the bigger waves came in.

Not that Amelia wasn't pulling her own weight -- that girl had an iron grip on those handles.

Nick and I literally had to drag her in from the ocean, because she would have stayed out there ALL DAY.

The thought did cross my mind: Do sharks eat stingrays? Because if so, this looks really appetizing from their standpoint in the ocean, I imagine.

Did I mention that I jogged every day we were there? I think I skipped one day because of lightning, but every other day I was out there LIVING THE NIGHTMARE.

On Thursday when I was on my way back to the house, I noticed a little trail heading away from the street, so I took it. I had no idea where it would go, but I had a hunch it would lead to the intracoastal if it went far enough.

After about a five minute walk, I came to this:

Yep, that's a look across the marsh they'd kayaked that morning.

I continued on, wondering if I'd go farther out into the marsh or eventually hit a dead end. Or get kidnapped. But I was really hoping for one of the former. And then I came upon this tree:

At first I thought it was kind of ugly and creepy, but then I looked a little closer and saw what looked almost like a character in it.

At that point I was probably 15 minutes away from the entrance to the trail and I wasn't sure if it was a horseshoe or a straight line -- I was about to turn around when I walked up to a bridge with a view:

While I was standing there admiring it (and taking a picture), a family of four came up behind me and I was able to ask WHERE THE HECK THE TRAIL ENDED. They told me I was three-quarters of the way to the other side, so I just kept going.

When I came out, I was a few blocks past our house, so I had to backtrack -- BUT I HAD ADVENTURED.

It's a good thing I got back when I did, because less than an hour later, a huge shelf cloud formed over the island and it was like a scene out of a movie.

It changed every minute or so, and its colors and shapes were just beyond beautiful.

I took every single one of these standing on our back deck with my phone. No editing or filters.

It started to lighten up from south to north after about 10 minutes.

And then -- this was so freaky -- the shelf cloud was still there, but the sun was high in the sky, breaking through the clouds right in front of our house. It was amazing. I've never seen anything like it.

What a way to end the day.