Anya Bast

Once in a while I crave the ocean. I don’t necessarily want to live by the ocean, too many people live on the edges of the USA for my tastes. But a few days oceanside on vacation? Yes, please. So we decided to take a rare week of vacation and drive down to Panama City Beach.

The weather was actually cooler there than where we live in the middle of the country. Weird, huh? And while the sun beats strong and fierce, (amazingly so), a nice breeze accompanied our days on the sand. We did a lot of lazing, a lot of watching our daughter swim and play, a lot of eating good food. Basically, it was a great recharge of our batteries.

One day we went out on a boat to look for wild dolphin. Dolphin are very curious about people. I can understand why; we are pretty strange, after all. This dolphin swam right up to the boat unexpectedly when we’d anchored to take a swim. He hung out for a little while, letting the kids have a very special encounter..

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We also stopped on a beach that was filled with little hermit crabs. For a girl from a place with no beaches, this was a serious treat. I’ve never seen anything like this before.

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.This one seems to be saying, “Please, no pictures.”

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They are kind of cute, aren’t they?

I did absolutely no work for an entire week. No writing. No even thinking about writing….(well, maybe a little thinking about writing). It was exactly what I needed. Sometimes it’s important to just shut the brain off for a while, don’t you think? It’s beneficial for the long run to give ourselves little breaks here and there.

Now I’m home and ready to get back to work. I’ve finished up a novella for Samhain and am working on the outline for the next Brotherhood of the Damned novel, feeling refreshed and energized..