Romantic Enchantic Atlantic

I had never seen the ocean...nope...not ever in all of my years had I been to the beach and seen the glorious crashing waves of briny blue.

This may seem unfathomable to some, but I was raised in New Mexico, and we spent many a day playing in the pure beach-esque white dunes of White Sands, but hence, it is a desert and landlocked, therefore no shores.

I have seen Lake Superior whose horizon appears, like the ocean, to have no end, and it has a beautiful lighthouse similar to those found on coastal shores. I have been in New York Harbor, but that is basically just a river, not the real McCoy. I have also seen rivers big (some may doubt the vastness of the Rio Grande--but I have seen the Mississippi, the Potomac, the Hudson) and small, and spent time on frozen lakes in northern Minnesota and in thawed lakes in Alberta, Canada where my Grandma lives.

I have clambered up the slippery edges of the Athabasca Glacier in Jasper National Park (also in Alberta), and peered down the bottomless blue fissures in the slowly drifting slab.







I crossed the Tropic of Capricorn every Monday for seven months of my missionary service while going from Barueri to Santana de Parnaíba--São Paulo, Brasil to attend missionary district meetings.

Brasil--now you are saying, what is wrong with you? How can you have been to that glorious tropical paradise whose vast shores are as long as the United States is wide and never seen the ocean? Yes--I know. But as a missionary we had certain regions where we lived and worked and our work was continuous for the entire two years, therefore, a getaway to the beach wasn't exactly on the agenda--but I assure you, I will go back, and I will frolic on those Atlantic shores...

...but today...several thousand miles to the Northwest of that beloved country Brasil, in a little place called Long Beach, NY along the Atlantic Coast (also about an hour by train from where I live in the city, much like when I lived in São Paulo)


...I saw the ocean for the first time.










I was thrilled.
















I frolicked.





















And I was not disappointed.










And my boyhood dream of finding shells along the shores was fulfilled and passed on to become a tangible experienced for my own little boy.

What a glorious experience! This beach was recommended by a friend who surfs here in New York--I never would have thought that surfing was a thing to do here, but alas, this parallel universe is full of surprises.

And I will let Brecken fill you in on the rest of our fun day at the beach...