Sunday, April 26, 2009

A beautiful (rainy) day at the beach

I have a weather icon on my desktop, a link to daily weather updates on my phone, and was the meteorologist here at Calvin for last semester’s news show.  Yet I apparently managed to ignore all of that as I made plans to travel to the Grand Haven beach yesterday. Donning my swim suit and grabbing a beach towel and a frisbee I set out with my roommate and friends Liz Eckman and Priscilla “the Egyptian.”
We arrived to a cloudy and chilly Grand Haven. We walked down the boardwalk to the tall red lighthouse at the end of the pier and watched the dark skies above Lake Michigan.

image  image

The waves were exceptionally big that day and would occasionally surprise us with a jolting soak.

image


image

We did meet an ‘old man in the sea’ who cruised the cresting waves in his banana boat.  He loved telling us about his extreme hobby.  It made me wish that I owned a wet suit!


image


After awhile, it began to rain so we pranced back to Liz’s car, barely ahead of a thunderstorm.  Once safely inside the dry confines of the vehicle we decided to drive to the beach to watch the lightning.  This was apparently a popular decision and we were parked next to about ten other cars that shared our idea. The thunderous and incomprehensible crescendos of the band Sigur Ros seemed like a perfect musical companion to the patter of rain and cracks of lightning.  Halfway through the album the thunderstorm died down, but the rain kept falling in sheets! 
We went to a bakery in the shopping district of Grand Haven to warm up a bit.  I felt a bit sorry for the workers who probably had to mop their floors after we drippingly ordered coffee.
Finally we headed back to Calvin.  It was a wet, cold day at the beach, yet remarkably relaxing and fun!

Posted by Joe Sonheim on 04/26 at 07:33 PM
Permalink

<< Back to main