Addendum to a sunny afternoon

Having slept in so late, I'm still awake and just checked outside. The wind is dying a bit and changing direction. It's actually warmer now than it was at 6:00 pm. Probably due to the cloud cover. I can't see the stars tonight. Anyway, as long as I'm here, let me tell you about my favorite image of today's walk.

When I got back to the condos, I sat in the sun on a bench outside of the gazebo. From there, one gets a good view of the decks of the fancy oceanfront units at the end of the complex. They're twice as big as mine, wrapping around the front on two sides. They have nice furniture - none of it is plastic.

The top penthouse unit had two blue rocking chairs - with cushions - facing the sea. The wind was so strong it made them rock, but in different rhythms, so it looked like there were invisible people in them, maybe having a conversation.

My second favorite image was at sunset. It was most unspectacular tonight as the sky was clear and it was really cold in the wind so I didn't stay on the deck to watch it disappear. But when the sky started to color, I went back out and found clouds rolling in from the east. To the west were four jet planes, I suppose from the nearby military base flying some kind of maneuvers. There were two in the distance and two close enough that the vapor trails were large and visible. I watched as they flew in opposite directions and then turned and flew directly towards each other. From my vantage point it looked like they might collide until the very last moment.

The vapor trails, lit by the last light of the sun, blazed like orange fire behind the black silhouettes of the jets. They looked like Buck Roger rockets in the sky. That was worth standing in the cold wind. I watched until they all disappeared into the black cloud bank.