DocAndersen
I get good pictures on occasion. One of my favorite pictures from my 3rd trip to Thailand is in this batch. We went to dinner on an old ship that had been retired and was now a restaurant. From our table, I could look out up the Chao Phyra river, and as you see in the pictures, we watched the sun go down as we ate. It is a magical picture for me, the setting sun. I love all the wonderful pictures I see online of the setting sun; each one is different in the sense that where the camera is, what the person captures and what is around the person as they capture the sunset. All of those variables are different, the sun, however, is the same in every picture. It is the sun.
The best part about sitting on the water as we ate was that we were on the water. Well, I know that is my thing, but it matters to me. Some of my favorite memories of my childhood are around being in the water. One of the favorite pictures of all time is my mother and I sitting on the beach my grandfather mad on lake Ripley. Beaches are created by time and waves. Or, they are created by lugging bags of sand down a hill and pouring them on the ground. Grandpa built a beach that went out to the edge of the first section of the pier. Funny, the other side of the pier was where the Bluegills hung out. But on the short side, there was sand. As a child, I didn’t think about how the sand got there.
As I got older, I helped with the opening of the pier. We added sand every year. We also brought a rowboat with an old Evinrude motor into the swimming area. You ran the motor to create a current that allowed all the leaves, gunk, and water plants to be moved away from the sandy area. Grandpa had clearly defined the limits of the beach. We didn’t often have the motor on the rowboat. The rowboats, once the summer started, came with the rental of the cottages. There were four cottages when I was little, three remaining as I got older. Grandpa and I painted the cottages one summer. I remember marveling at the amazing reality that my grandfather and my great grandfather had built the cottages.
