Yesterday evening, my younger daughter and I were able to take her friend into town for dinner.  When we were told it would be about 20-30 minutes before a table would be open (buffet night is popular, it turns out… :-D ), we put our name on the list, then headed for the beach, which was basically across the street from the restaurant.

We had been getting thunderstorm warnings for a few hours by then.  While there were no signs of a storm, yet, the winds were incredibly high.  High enough that one of the small trees on the boulevard near where we parked came down while we were in the area!

This late in the day, the tide was very low, and people were taking advantage of it.

I’m not sure if you can tell, but the kids on the left are lying in the shallow water, waiting for the waves to crash over them. :-D

It didn’t show well in any of the photos I took, but the high winds would, at times, pick up and blow away sand hard enough that walking into the wind meant our faces getting sandblasted as we returned to the restaurant.

The dinner was excellent, and we got a couple of pizzas to take home for my husband and older daughter, too.  I never imagined a chicken and broccoli pizza with Alfredo sauce would be that incredibly delicious!

Since we were in town, we took advantage of being there to play some Pokemon Go.  We ended up joining a group for a legendary raid, at a park near a cove.  While waiting for the rest of the group to show up, I got these photos.

I usually come by here in the mornings, and this area is, if not completely under water, very close to it.  It looks absolutely dry in the photo, though that would be very misleading.

Such a pretty little cove.

This evening was an example of one of the reasons I enjoy playing Pokemon Go.  For those who don’t know the game, it uses GPS and real-world maps to get you to different areas to catch Pokemon.  There are “stops” in the game that are at real-world locations (churches, public art, historical buildings, etc.) that can be spun to get things needed in the game.  Some of these stops are also gyms, where you can train your Pokemon by battling the Pokemon from people on other teams that control the gym, and take control of the gym for your own team.  A fairly new feature added to the game has giant, different coloured eggs suddenly appear at gyms, with a countdown to when they will hatch.   Most of the time, it’s a larger version of regular Pokemon, of varying strengths.  Some, a player can battle by themselves.  Others can be defeated within the time frame only when players battle in groups.  The colour of the egg gives players an idea of how powerful the hatchling will be, and how many people will be needed to “raid” the gym and defeat the Pokemon.  This is a way people from normally opposing teams can work together for mutual benefit in the game.

Then there are the Legendary Pokemon.  These hatch out of a particular type of egg, and typically require quite a large group battling together to defeat.  That is what we ended up joining last night, and there ended up 9 players battling together.  I’m part of a chat group that people use to organize this, and it’s rare that we are in town and able to take part, so we took advantage of it.

We got to the location early and just hung out at the park and statue in the area, until others started to arrive.

The first group arrives and I watch as they come out of the vehicle, realizing that I know one of them.  A woman from my home town that I’ve known for pretty much all my life, in fact, and haven’t seen in more than a decade!  It turned out she has been playing the game for less than a week, and she was there with family members who where showing her how to play.

Then, just before we started, a little family group arrives, including a young child.  I recognize the mom and daughter.  They are the daughter and granddaughter of a friend of mine from high school!  It was the dad and daughter that were playing the game. :-D

I also got to attach faces to user names that I have as “friends” in the game.

Since I’ve started playing the game, I’ve found Pokemon Go players to be the friendliest of people, and now the game is bringing me on contact with people I wouldn’t be crossing paths with, otherwise.

It’s really quite awesome!

The Re-Farmer