The view from 10F…

Yesterday Hilly and I spent the day at Daytona Beach. And then drove around the coast a bit up A1A (Beachfront Avenue!) to see some of the more ritzy beach houses. This was my first time at Daytona — and Hilly’s first time experiencing a beach on this side of the continent.

She noticed that the Atlantic didn’t have that same blue look as the Pacific. The sky was a clear, bright blue, but the water closer in looked a grayish green. Kind of like that color people describe as “green khaki” even though it looks nothing like khaki. She asked me if I knew why the water simply appears not as crystally clear blue as it does on the left coast.

Of course, I made up some sort of answer that sounded more plausible in my head than it actually did when I spoke the words. The matter was dropped, but the question still bugged me.

I dozed off on the flight back to DC (where I’m currently typing this) and woke up to an amazing sight 35,000 feet up: below the wispy clouds I saw the deep, vibrant blue on the ocean. The white clouds were even reflecting off of a blue so powerful and pure. And there was the beach. And from what I gathered, a road parallelling it. A1A.

This was the blue Atlantic Ocean I remembered. Beautiful. Piercing even. I now had something I could take back to Hilly and report: it does exist on this side of the country. Just further up the coast.

And then I opened my eyes a bit more, becoming fully awake.

I was looking at the blue engine Of the Southwest plane this entire time. And the reflection of the yellow stripe of the body of the plane right under it.

I’m a bit of a tool when I’ve just awoken…