So here's the short of it, 
Remembering Dad today.

And here's the long.

Loggerhead Poster

 Today I went to Normal Park Upper School for a meeting. I was in the meeting room a few minutes before the other participants arrived. As I was moving some things from the table we would be using, I picked up a poster that was rolled up and it opened a bit as I grabbed it - it was a poster of the Loggerhead Turtle. I was swept back years ago when I was single and the Howard family rented a house on Kiowah Island.  For a few years that was a thing that we did.

Those memories just rushed over me.  I didn't really have much time to dwell on it at all since the other participants in the meeting arrived very quickly.  So I quickly snapped a shot of the poster - actually I could only get the top part of it in the time I had. 

After the meeting as I was driving to my next meeting, I had a chance to really think about those memories. I had this incredible image of the night several of us went down to the beach to find that a Loggerhead Turtle mom had made her way up the beach and was digging a nest to leave her eggs in.  How amazing it was to see her. That was the beginning of my interest in these creatures. Dad was so excited about seeing them. Over the next few days, he would point out to us the places one had come ashore to lay her eggs and left a trail. At that time, the nests were harvested and the eggs taken to a hatchery since the beaches were so busy.

I also remember going for an early morning beach walk with Dad one morning. We were looking for shells and just walking down to the point and back.  When we arrived,  what a sight - there was a small pod of porpoises fishing.  They would circle around the school of fish and drive them up to the shore.  The fish would swim right out onto the beach and the porpoises would launch right out onto the beach and get two or three before they slipped back into the water. They did this over and over again. We had never seen anything like that before and of course we had not remembered to bring along a camera! But we often talked about that morning. It was quite an experience for a couple of Kentucky mountain folks. 

I'm ever so grateful that I have so many good memories with Dad and I'm equally glad that I still have Mom here to keep making memories.