A Near Miss

I woke up this morning around 4am with my right knee killing me from all the back-and-forth of packing and unpacking I've done over the past two days. You know that tormenting variety of sleeplessness, when you're aware something isn't feeling good but you just don't have the where-with-all to get up and do something about it? After another 3 hours of tossing and turning while trying to keep my knee propped on a pillow I finally got up and took a leftover 800mg prescription ibuprofen. I came out of the cabin and sat at the table of the (enclosed) lower cockpit with a cup of tea and watched the sideways rain for about 2 hours as the pain in my knee dulled.

Being by yourself on the boat, you can certainly feel isolated here at the marina, which can be good and bad. From certain vantage points all you can see are other boats and water. Add to that a tornado warning and sideways rain and you've got yourself a real de-motivator. But it's not like you have to swim to shore or hitch hike 20 miles to the nearest town. It's 3 miles to Wal-Mart from here, only 2 or 3 stoplights.

At exactly 11am, after several hours of rocking back and forth and watching the motor yacht next to us look like it would break free from its lines at any moment, it stopped raining and the sun came out. This miraculous act of Mother Nature motivated me to finally get going with my day. I got dressed and set out to pick up a few supplies.

I thought I'd take a quick detour to see if the new road connecting the marina to the ocean had opened yet. I was delighted to see that indeed it had, and bike lanes have been painted too! I tooled around in my sporty little convertible ~ envisioning myself pedaling my bike along this lovely palm-tree lined boulevard to the yoga studio where I plan to take classes soon on 79th Ave. Glorious sun overhead, seagulls yapping, warm ocean breeze to my back, when suddenly "WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!!" was YELLED AT ME by this total asshole Harley biker, who I nearly ran over while merging back on to the main road. Oops.

My window was down and he practically stuck his head in to yell at the top of his venomous, roid-rage induced, testosterone-filled lungs. To me, the only thing worse than being next to a car playing super-sub-woofing, windshield rattling gangsta-rap "music" at mind numbing decibels is being next to a Harley. Did I mention it's BIKE WEEK in Myrtle Beach this week? Talk about a rude awakening!