Different Viewpoint

Saturday my lovely wife and I joined some friends over in Maine for lunch. We met in a town that I don't normally go to. The town is located on a good sized lake. Since the last time we've hung out there, they really improved their waterfront. They built a really nice park and boat launch.

My friends own a large double sea kayak and got excited by the waterfront park. They really want to use the boat launch. Many years ago my lovely wife and were hard pressed to find a good place to launch a canoe on that lake. Now with the park upgrades it's really easy to launch small boats.

The park really got me thinking of other parks we've encountered on our travels. When we are on a sailboat, we keep our eyes open for good places to take the dog to shore. Also we look for places where we can land and get other supplies. Some of Florida's waterfronts are very heavily populated. It's not always easy to find a place where we aren't trespassing on some grouchy landowners property.

Parks have often worked well for us. We'd find a park on paper or electronic maps. Then we'd anchor off and paddle the kayak in. Often we'd lock the kayak to a park bench. Public park benches and picnic tables are usually fastened securely to the ground to keep them from wandering off. Then we'd walk the dog and do any other business we were there for.

Filling my lovely wife's prescriptions can be a logistical nightmare. We search on-line for any pharmacies in the area where we plan on being in the next few days. They have to be fairly near the waterfront. Then we look for anchorages and potential places where we could land. Everything has to be within walking distance.

Once we decide on a place she has to call the pharmacy she picked out. Then she calls her doctor's office back home to set up the prescriptions. That usually takes a few days lead time. It's not a smooth process as the medical system is a complicated mess. Heaven help you if you have to work around holiday weekends. There's only a narrow time window when they'll fill her order. One of the medications she takes is both expensive and highly regulated, but it works, so that's what we are stuck with. It's a hassle, but only for a few days every month.

So seeing that nice waterfront park got me thinking. Most people think of that kind of park as a nice place to enjoy the water. We think that too, but we also think of parks as a nice place to come ashore and enjoy the land.

One funny thing. We only see the “no dogs allowed” sign after we've walked through the park and come to the entrance. No one has ever given us any grief about it. They don't post those signs at the water side.

-Sixbears