Our Chairs and Umbrella at Cocoa Beach
Our spot on the beach at Cocoa Beach, Florida, is marked by our chairs and umbrella. Plus some drink holders to keep our drinks out of the sand, too. This was during our July 2024 Florida trip, by the way.
While we were there at Cocoa Beach, we talked about the old days of going to the beach in your younger days. Back then, we would go without any chairs and without an umbrella. But age and wisdom and life events have taught us to be more prepared. We now have more to carry as we make the walk from our car to the beach, but it is all worth it in the long run.
The chairs keep us out of the sand just a bit more than sitting on a towel does. Plus, you don’t have a sand-filled towel that way, too. And they are Mickey Mouse chairs, so that makes it easier for us to know which ones are ours.
The umbrella protects us from the sun while we are under it. Yes, we still wear sunscreen and I wear a hat, but a shady place to sit is a blessing on those sunny days. The colorful stripes that add flash to a photo are a bonus.
And the drink holders were a gift from the Riedels, and they were much appreciated, too. Much better than getting pesky sand all over your bottle of water or Coca-Cola!
Also, from the angle above, it looks like other beachgoers came and set up their beach stuff right in front of us, but that is not quite the case. Here is our view from our chairs:
Our view of the beach was framed by an umbrella and a tent, but at least there was not anyone or anything right in front of us. In hindsight, we perhaps should have set up our stuff a little closer to the water to further deter people from being in front of us. Maybe I will remember that for the next time!
Be Imitators
We have come a long way in our beach trips from those early days when we would just take a couple of beach towels. We learned along the way by seeing what others did. We do some of what others do with our umbrella and chairs. But we do not do what some others do, having watched the difficulty that some people experience in setting up their tents and canopies. We have chosen to imitate the things that seem to work, and not to imitate the things that don’t seem to work all that well.
We do that in other areas of life as well. We imitate things that we see people do, whether it is in person or in the media. Advertisers thrive on that, after all, trying to make people using their products look attractive or cool, so that we will want to be like them by using those same products. Sometimes that is good, other times not so much.
But we cannot go wrong in imitating God. He loved us, and we should love others. And Jesus loved us and gave himself up for us setting another example for us to follow.
As we try to love one another, God is our ultimate example.
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. - Ephesians 5:1-2
About the Photos
Yes, these photos are rather heavy on color saturation. Too heavy? I suppose that depends on your preferences. I started with the same preset that I used for the photo of Cocoa Beach from the ocean. I then experimented with decreasing the saturation just a bit from that starting point, but I decided that I liked it like it was, so that is what you might see here. It is difficult for me to do away with that amazing blue sky!
Photo: A single Raw exposure, processed in Raw Therapee and GIMP.
Camera: Sony Alpha A7 II
Lens: Rokinon 35mm f/1.8
Date: July 24, 2024
Location: Cocoa Beach, Florida
