In honor of National Beach Day (August 30), this episode of Big Blend Radio's VACATION STATION Travel Show focuses on Beach Destinations and Family Memories. Enjoy the group conversation and individual segments that follow and share beach experiences from Tonga and England, to South and North Carolina, New Jersey and Long Island, Mississippi and Texas, and beyond!
GROUP CONVERSATION
- JO CLARK, travel writer and photographer, talks about her local beach community of The Grand Strand in South Carolina's Myrtle Beach area. Check out her Grand Strand travel guide: https://recipestravelculture.com/60-miles-beaches-make-a-grand-strand/
- DIANE DOBRY, travel writer, talks about her family vacations in Noyac Bay, close to Sag Harbor, Long Island. Read her story: https://discoverydaze.com/2021/11/15/sag-harbor-li-a-walk-through-history/
- JULIE DEE SUMAN, travel writer and photographer, talks about her family vacations in the Outer Banks region of North Carolina, and beyond. Visit: https://blendradioandtv.com/listing/julie-dee-suman-travel-writer-and-photographer/
INDIVIDUAL SEGMENTS
- LISA EVANS, travel writer and author of "100 Things To Do in Coastal Mississippi Before You Die," talks about Ship Island in Mississippi. Follow her website for articles covering Ship Island and coastal Mississippi: https://writerlisa.com/published-stories-and-interviews/
- ROSE PALMER, travel writer and photographer, talks about her family vacations in Ocean City, New Jersey. Follow Rose and her travel adventures around the world, on her site https://quiltripping.com/
- SHARON K. KURTZ, travel writer and photographer, shares her beach and nature adventures during her winter visit to Port Aransas, Texas. Read her article about her trip https://nationalparktraveling.com/listing/discover-the-timeless-allure-of-port-aransas/
- GLYNN BURROWS, owner of Norfolk Tours in England, talks about the Beachs of England. Read his article about Walking England's Coastline: https://nationalparktraveling.com/listing/walking-englands-varied-coastline/
- STEVE & KAREN WILSON, aka "Mr & Mrs Wild," are owners of The Lion & The Rose Bed & Breakfast in Asheville, North Carolina. They talk about their beach and whale watching experiences that go from Southern California to Tonga! You can hear even more about their whale watching adventures around the world, here: https://youtu.be/9ElVnSudQ7U?feature=shared
Big Daily Blend
Best Beaches - Destinations and Family Memories
Welcome to Big Blend Radio's Vacation Station Travel and Leisure Show. Hey everybody, welcome to our Big Blend Radio Vacation Station show. You know, it's our travel show and we love to go to the beach, right? And August 30th is National Beach's Day, so of course, that's what we're celebrating. Going to the beach at the end of summer is not quite here depending on where you are in the world, but I think beaches are year round. And so we have some great guests joining us today. They are all travel writers and they're going to be sharing some of their favorite beaches for you to visit. And I'm excited about this. We're going to have fun. And after this discussion, we do have some other great guests, you know, Big Blend Radio experts that share some of their favorite beach destinations. So stay tuned after this conversation. So let's start with Joe. Joe Clark is a travel writer and photographer. She also has a podcast with us that airs every second Sunday at 7 p.m. We know her as Joe who has a glass and will travel, and that's really true. Her website is haveglasswilltravel.com, and she literally does go everywhere. But today she is at home in South Carolina on the Grand Strand, right? She's in the Mertel Beach area, not far from where we are in North Carolina right now. So welcome back. How are you, Joe? I'm great. I've been on the beach already this morning, put in my two miles. So the sunrise. It's a great day in Mertel Beach. Oh, I love it. I love it. So we're on the East Coast right now. So this is kind of that. But I don't know where Julie Dee's semen is a Julie Dee has been on our show a few times and she's a travel writer photographer. She loves nature. She loves bird watching like we do. And her latest article is actually about ospreys, but that's up in a riverfront area in Maryland. So we have talked about the Gulf Coast with her before. So I'm wondering where she is calling in from today because I believe she's actually at the beach. So she's doing it just like Joe. So welcome back, Julie. How are you? I'm great. Thanks for having me, Lisa. And I'm actually at the Delaware beaches. So we are on Bethany Beach. We have a condo out here and so I'm lucky to be working this week from the beach. Unlike Joe, I have not made it outside yet to the beach, but I plan to do that this afternoon because it's a beautiful day here. What are the beaches like out there because that area, from what I remember being up there, it seems like there's waterways connected to the beaches, which is obviously usual, but it kind of is a nice blend as I recall. Yeah, yeah, so there are. So the beaches are great all the way down, you know, really, if you go into Maryland, Ocean City on the way up to Rojoba Beach, Lewis area and Delaware, you know, wide beaches, good waves, you know, family, friendly, friendly, and you do have the added benefit of the NASA woman wildlife preservation on the other side of the, from where we are in Bethany Beach. And so you do get canals that connect inland and the opportunity to do, you know, paddle boarding and kayaking and things like that. So there's a lot of activity on the water out here. That's very cool, very cool. Now we're going to go up north, usually we were, we've always been talking to Dr. Diane Dobry, who's a travel writer and author, podcaster as well. She's always on the show talking about Hungary or Florida, but she moved from Florida. Now she is upstate New York, right Diane? Welcome back. How are you? Oh, thank you. I'm doing well, and I'm a native New Yorker. I grew up on Long Island. So that's surrounded by some of the nicest beaches that I've ever been to. And Florida, you know, of course there were beaches. I didn't make it to too many beaches, though, when I was there, because I was so busy working, but I did go to one beach, Jack's Beach and oh, and St. Augustine. So those were, those were pretty, but I am partial to Long Island beaches. Ah, so everyone, you can go to Diane's website. She's got one called Discovery Days, and that's D-A-Z-E Discovery Days dot com and also Hungarian Aquarian dot com. So Diane, what about beaches of Hungary? Well, Hungary does have beaches, which is along the Danube, and they used to be a, they're landlocked now, but they used to have a water, a coastline before World War I, apparently, but my first year in Hungary and walking down to the Danube from my friend's apartment, you know, I was sitting on the beach and I realized that there were people with, you know, no clothes on. The topless women and stuff, so that was a lot more acceptable, but they also would change on the beach there. And when my friends from Hungary came to the Hamptons with me, they're like, where do we change? And I'm like, you're supposed to be wearing your bathing suit before you get here. So they wrapped towels around each other and changed it within the towels in Southampton. I don't know how that went over, but they managed. Well, Cape Canaveral in Florida, which is on the space coast, it's beautiful. And, you know, we go there a lot because of Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and then it's connected to Cape Canaveral, which is one of our national seashores. And it's really cool because this is, you know, where people go to watch the spaceships go up and the rockets and all that kind of stuff. You can tell how much I know about that. But I remember when we first got to Florida and I was just, I mean, so new to this country from South Africa. And I had moved to Melbourne on the coast and I love that area. And I'm on my way to work. And everyone's pulled over on the side of the road. And I'm going, what's, and you can see the coast and everything to keep it in the beach thing. And I'm like, what's going on? Why is everyone pulled over and just consider my background of having to leave South Africa at a time where it was very, a lot of stuff was going on. That was kind of scary, you know, to be around at the time. And so I thought, is it right going to break out? Is this a bomb blast? You know, because I'm kind of used to that for flipping in Africa. So I'm going, what the heck are we really? And then it was like, are we going to beam up? Are we beaming up? Why are they looking up? Are we going? Like, are the aliens finally like really showing up? No, because I'm like, what is going on? It was so freaky. And then it was like, oh, yeah, this thing was going up. The rocket was going up. And so I had no idea that this is where I lived and what was going on. And, but I really, there was, I can't tell you the emotions that went through my body that day going, like, what is going on? Why is everyone looking up at the sky? You know, I was so naive, but it was pretty funny. But Cape Canaveral does have a nudie beach or a closed optional and they have signs for it. Beware, you're entering like the nudie zone. It's pretty trippy. It's funny to go. So I have to give a shout out to that National Park Seashore. So I want to go back to Joe. Joe, if you always gone to Myrtle Beach, is that something from your childhood growing up in Virginia? Did you go in vacation in the grand strand? Oh, yes. My father was one who, if he was outdoors for 10 minutes under the umbrella, he would blister and burn. My mother and I were the beach, but babes, you know, we were out there all day long in the sun. She loved the beach. So this was the closest thing to where I lived in Virginia. We could be here in probably five and a half or six hours back then with the two lane roads and, you know, a picnic lunch on the way. But I've come here all my life and I joke that I moved here because the commute was killing me. You know, I would leave after work on Thursday or Friday and drive to the beach and spend the weekend and then leave at like 10 o'clock on Sunday night and have to be back and at work at eight o'clock on Monday morning. So it was easier to just move and this is where I wanted to be. So people say, oh, you live at the beach. You're so lucky. Luck had nothing to do with it. I packed up and moved. That is not law. That's determination. And beach life, it seems to be quality of life for you because you do beach yoga. You go walking on the beach and then you have food from the beach. You've got a lot of good food. You've got parks and trees and forest and so it seems like you have a lot going on. I do. I love where I am and it's good weather. We have we have yoga on the beach. About, I would say almost year round. It's between six and eight weeks in January and February that we've moved to a studio and cry about the fact that we're not on the beach for those eight weeks, but we're still doing our yoga, but then we're right back on the beach. And we have gorgeous days during those months. She'll have a pop up class. All of a sudden you'll get a text. Yoga tomorrow morning at 12 or 11. We just do it later in the day. And yeah, for mental sanity, that's where I find my peace and my contentment is walking by the ocean. It always has been. I'm just drawn, maybe because I'm an aquarium. I'm drawn to the water. I'm drawn to the sea. I think there's something embryonic about it because of us being in the womb as babies. I think there's something about the beach that just the tide, the water, even being in the water is going back into that zone where you can space out completely because you don't need to know anything while you're in there other than be safe. That's right. And so it's kind of like that floatation. I mean, they say that's even swimming, like doing water aerobics and things like that, or synchronized swimming is really healthy for you. Like when you look at, you know, trying to get fit and healthy. And if you need to ease into things, just walking, yoga, Pilates, Tai Chi, those kinds of things and swimming and being there. So I think the beach offers that kind of, I don't know, it's nurturing. Would you say that, Joe, with your lifestyle? Yeah, I think so. And I love shell hunting. You know, I find sharks teeth and shells. You've seen my piles of shells with what I picked up on the beaches. So, yeah, I just, I love walking the beach. And the sunrise sunset, that's the other thing. Like to me, I know, I wish the sun, I wish the sun set on my beach. You know, I'm on the wrong side of the world. Well, it sounds like you're doing pretty good. We get sunrise and it's just too early. Oh, I love the sunrise. I figure if God meant for me to see sunrise every day, he had to schedule it later. Oh, yeah, because you work into weird hours, I know, because I'm on the other side of the emails getting him, then going, what the heck am I doing up? You know, like Joe, what are you doing? You better not still be having wine. And then she'll go never ask. You know, so yeah, you never know. But Julie, what about you? Was the beach part of your childhood? So I grew up in Western Pennsylvania, so pretty landlocked. And we would go to the outer banks every summer for our family vacation. So I've always had an affinity to the beach because it wasn't what we did for our summer holiday. I love the outer banks region. And, you know, I'm just this, like, Joe, I find it relaxing here. I'm just, you know, this type A super overachiever and being at the ocean is the one place where I manage to like. It washes it away, doesn't it? Chill. Yes, I managed to actually. It washes type A right on out. I actually managed to chill out. And, and, you know, here in Bethany Beach, my husband grew up going here. His grandmother had a place. And so he, you know, this is home, a second home to him. So, you know, that's why we're out here in Bethany. And I love it. You know, we find that we're more active at the beach. You know, we go for walks. We go hiking. You know, it's just a place where we're more engaged, I think, compared to, you know, sitting on our butts back in Baltimore. Oh, well, there you go. No sitting on the buttsies. Well, if you can on the beach, you can be a beach bum. And that's a lot. That's, that's your, as long as your butts in the sand and your toes in the surf. Mm hmm. Exactly. Exactly. I agree. I agree with you. Um, yeah. Yeah. Sorry. No, I was just saying. And now the beach, I think symbolizes, you know, family, like we have a place here. So our sons come here. We anticipate this is where we'll see them as their young adults and starting families. You know, so the beach to me also really symbolizes family. I agree. I agree. Family is. Yeah. You know, and also just, you know, getting out there, making sand castles together, like you can't use your phone on that. You know, you can't exactly. Sure. Right. And, and it's like when you're at the beach, those schedules drop away. There's no soccer game. There's no cheerleading tryout. There's, there's nothing but the beach. Yep. And so you do have that family time that you mentioned. Yeah, that, that's your quality time because there's, there's no competition for your time. Right. Right. It's, you're so true, Joe. Um, you know, and actually I'm, you know, my youngest son is down here with me right now. And so we plan to hit the beach this afternoon and just kind of hang out and enjoy being together. So when Joe was talking about the, you know, beating the surf and the health benefits of it, you know, I, I've watched this movie called Earthing and how it helps to walk barefoot on the earth. One of the best places to walk barefoot for the electric charge that goes through us and gets neutralized from the earth is walking in salt water on the beach because the salt water helps with the electric. We knew that Julie and I knew that didn't we do it. We know it's just that electric charge. That's the whole reason. Actually, Diane, I did know that I have a friend who believes in that immensely and practices that. So I've actually heard of that series, but I haven't had a chance to, to watch it yet. It's on my list. Grew up. Um, as I said, on Long Island, we went to the beach regularly, but we every summer until I was in high school. We rented a house on Noyak Bay near Sag Harbor. And what was good about that was when Noyak Bay was low tide. The ocean was high tide. So we drive over to East Hampton and surf the waves in the ocean. And when that was low tide, we'd go back to Noyak Bay and we would go on our boat, go on a sailboat. And then we got a motorboat. And as a teenager, we would just hang out and water ski. Or go drag the anchor and get muscles from the bottom of the, you know, the bay and clamming. And, you know, it was just the best way to spend a teenage years. I was so spoiled. I didn't even know it. That's awesome. You know, I think you growing up for me in different countries, I was really lucky because I did like the beaches in England, which I thought were completely different. But like my first real beat. I know when I was a baby, I probably saw some in California. I was born, but like my remembering of everything. My memories are in Kenya. And I was really lucky to be on the beaches of Mombasa and the Lindy. And you're talking about that white sand. You're talking about water that is like body temperature. And I learned how to snorkel. I learned what not like moray eels. Stay away from the moray eels. I learned, you know, we went out on glass bottom boats. And that's how I first learned about what you can, you know, don't touch the sea urchin. You know, that kind of stuff. But it was so cool because the tides would go out and you could literally, if you were sneakers or something and you were gentle and you don't, you know, do anything harmful. You could walk out through the coral reef, which was pretty cool. But the beaches there were amazing. It was the palm trees and giant crabs that would come running at you at the beach. You know, it was just absolutely amazing to see coral reefs and all of that. And then when we moved to South Africa, we had England in between. So it's completely different. And then South Africa has incredible beaches and very different. And, you know, we also grew up with the healthy respect of great white sharks and they would have what was called the sardines and the sardines would come in and they would kind of glisten and glow. And the sharks would come in and I don't care if you have shark nets or not those sharks when they want their sardines. That's it. They dominate that they're getting them. But it, I mean, the coast. You know, if you want to see something really different in beaches, I encourage people to take the garden route in South Africa from Cape Town, all the way up to Port Elizabeth and go all the way to Port Elizabeth because it's different beaches. Very rocky, but there's a lot of beaches to lays out and do all that kind of stuff. But there's places like the Sitzi Kamas, where the coastline is rocky and foggy and all of that. But then you have all those protea bushes that are bloomed, the protea flowers. And you have with these sugar birds and which are like big hummingbirds that hang out there and owls. And I mean, we've seen an ostrich walking down the beach out in that area. I don't know what's going on with that. And canaries, you know, they call it canary bush and they had little birds in there. I mean, and just rolling sand dunes and then you could go to the Cape Point and that's where the coastline like hello, the two, you know, oceans and meat and it's dramatic. I mean, so I just encourage people to do that kind of adventure because they also have hardwood forest, like milk, it's milk, whatever there. Anyway, I've been to South Africa or to Cape Town and I was there. I didn't get a chance to go to the beach, but I remember being up. It was a table mountain and you have these fantastic views of the coastline. And I can see what you're talking about, but it'd be worth going to spend some time there. So you're inspiring me to go back to South Africa. Oh, you should. Oh, and did you go to the hoop when you were there? Because you weren't far from the hoop and that's where you can you can actually dive with a great white shark if you want. No, we didn't do that. And there's penguins. There's penguins. That was my first experience seeing penguins up close down to keep a good hope. And my gosh, I wasn't prepared for how they smell, but it was cool to see them. It's awesome. You know, and we saw penguins in Namibia. You saw penguins in Namibia when you were there? Yeah. Yeah. I've got pictures of penguins lined up marching down the beach. They're pretty cool. Wow. And then Julie, you just came back from, you know, doing some whales and the Isle of Man. So that's a completely different beach, right? Yeah, a little bit more. It's more rocky, I think as well. But, you know, it still counts as a beach for me. It's drama. Yeah. Yeah. It's like Oregon has that kind of drama that I love. You know, it's, and it's beautiful on a sunny day, but, and it's so windy when it's winter, it is cold winds like it goes right. Yeah. But the drama of it all, it is just dramatic. Like, I want to write a novel there, and then you have the lighthouses and you're like, what went down? You know, something went down here, you know. Yeah. Have you ever been to Iceland, Lisa? No, not yet. Yeah, there's some pretty amazing beaches there, too. When you said wind, that would maybe maybe think of it. Like, black sand beaches with these dramatic landscapes. And there's one beach, they call it Diamond Beach, where there's ice that washes. There are like chunks from glaciers that, you know, wash up on the beach and they sparkle. They look like Diamond. So that's a pretty extreme beach that you probably would get a kick out of. I like the extreme of those kind of like, because it's just so the ruggedness, there's something ancient that happened. And, you know, whenever you stand at the beach, right, on the coastline, I'm like, you're at the end of land. Like, this, at one point, connected to the other side. Like, I know this is weird, you know. And listen, the world is round. People, like, we do not bump into ice cubes or ice walls. And now I'm probably saying that I'll go offline again. But it is kind of freaky to kind of think that we're sailing, right, if we're on a boat or raft or something like that. You're like, you're going around. But I always feel like when you're on the coastline and you're at the beach, you're like, you always want to get to the horizon. And it's like, you know, we think, you know, millions of years how things have changed, right? And how it's split off and yet you're really connected, you know, all of that kind of stuff. It's weird, you know, or just how much it's. There's always so much history around beach areas, you know, like, even though when I was staying there, it was like just this typical 1960s, 70s beach community and people hanging out and, you know, their t-shirts. It was pretty innocent at the time, very much families. But I've started writing about Sag Harbor. And I did a couple of stories about the history of the area and the whaling and the Long Island spy ring was there during the Revolutionary War, the Culver spy ring. And if you've seen the series Turn, they do mention Sag Harbor, but I wrote a little story like a fictional diary with the actual people from Sag Harbor as one of my projects for American Studies when I was in undergrad. And I'm trying to turn that into like either a young adult book or a, or a, you know, article for young teens to learn about the history of that area. But also St. Augustine has so much history going on. There's always something going on on the water, West Point and, you know, all along rivers up in Hungary, the Dunabend, which is where they would fight from the castles up above. Well, yeah, look at Normandy. The beaches of Normandy start to really think about history. Yeah, so much. I mean, that's where how people land. I mean, even the Mayflower. I think, you know, come on. That's an insane history. You know, it's like, that was not cruising. Now we're like, Oh, did they put a chocolate by my bed? No, not then. No, they didn't. Yeah, you know, and going. I mean, I'm so fascinated by like these, like, private hearing and private store, pirate stories. And then the stories of actual, you know, mutinies happening on board and the Eastern shoreline has got some crazy stories and North Carolina and South Carolina too. So I'm insane. It goes all the way up the coast, right, of these ships, what took them down and you've got to think, you know, you're having a war on board. There's, or a murder or some things going on on board. People go overboard and their sharks in there. I'm just saying, you know, and when you think about fighting at sea. Hello, people. They're sharks involved in this. You know, I mean, that's what. Well, Julia child, her first main recipe truly was a recipe to get sharks away from soldiers in the water. Really? Yes. Oh my God. She was in them in World War II. She never knew that. She made this recipe or something to feed sharks to deter them from eating humans. Soldiers. Isn't that crazy? You know, and I mean, could you just measure her and go like, come along, sharks. You know, so I think that's pretty fun. You know, when you put up a tea, you won't find this a much better recipe than and wool and sailors. Yeah. She did something like a shark repellent. Yeah, that's what she did was a shark repellent. And I mean, I don't know how she came up with that. I mean, obviously, it shouldn't smell like fish, I suppose, or, you know, chomp or anything. The other thing about psych harbor was it was a huge whaling town. So, you know, they were the native Americans were helping to spot whales and they were doing the scrimshaw and everything. So all the history of whaling and then boom, suddenly. The whale, the whale industry stuff. Well, the whaling industry is, I mean, any place that is a harbor of port, a bay, stuff went down, you know, things were coming in and out of legally and the history and legally too. But we want the illegal stuff. That's interesting. But, you know, but you know, things went down like historically, that's the thing about beaches is the history and there's this, you know, we talk about salt of the earth characters, right? But I think people who are at sea and really going out there in the, I mean, the water to me is like, this beautiful sense of freedom, but like, I know I can take care of myself on land if things go crazy or wonky in the ocean. No, you're on your own here. I'm shark bait. You know, but I love sharks, by the way, I love them. They're beautiful. And they're apex species. We need to protect. But, you know, when you, the people at the coast, it's like this contradiction of salt of the earth. You know, I'm out at sea and that weathered look of being out, you know, in the sun and the wind and the waves and everything. And then you've got like, Hey, man, I just want my ice cream. I just want to chill out. You got Joe doing yoga, you know, Diane's over there doing history and then you've got Julie over there going, wait, get away from my birds. There's plovers over here. Get away. You got to take a photo. So it's interesting to me how different, the different people that go to the beach, right? One thing I wanted to touch on since you're all travel riders is looking at what happens at beaches in regards to tourism. So when you as a travel rider, do you look at places that are like, I'm, I'm wondering about this because some areas, you know, you had to fight so that condos didn't take in. I'm not anti contest. Don't worry, Julie. I'm not anti it. But I'm talking about where it takes away public access, right? And some areas, you know, it's just a changing thing. There should be like some towns have made it like, I don't mind if someone, this is a private access, fine. But there should still be some version of the public access left. You know what I mean? Well, that's what Long Island has has done a lot of for most of their public beaches. There's like, no, you don't get the apartments. You don't get the hotels and the big, you know, restaurants overlooking the ocean, except, you know, you go to Montauk or, you know, the Hamptons. The Hamptons is kind of weird. We used to be able to go to East Hampton paid to park in a, you know, a restaurant parking lot that was nearby. And then we'd walk down to the beach. But now you need to permit. And what we, what my friend and I, we used to do girl girls only weekends and psych harbor. And then we drive to Southampton to this Tony neighborhood where these big houses overlook the ocean. And we would park like maybe a mile away and we would just walk down to the beach because we didn't have a permit to park there. But, you know, it was worth it because it was, you know, very private. You didn't, it wasn't a private beach for the people with the houses, but the parking was private. So you could still go on the beach. But you could get there. Yeah, you had to figure out the loophole of how you can park nearby or get dropped off or something and hang out at the beach. You know, yeah, that's, that's a cool thing. Like Venice Beach, one of the coolest beaches ever. Seriously, Venice Beach, California is fun, fun, fun. I haven't been there for about 10 years though. So who knows. But I mean, that's the, you got drum circles, you've got, you got everything going on. And you got, it just crazy shops and you've got people, you know, doing bodybuilding on the beach. You've got bars with bands, which is my favorite part is going in there. It's just people rollerblading in all kinds of interesting and wonderful acts. And I think it's so great because I think they charge them all permits now to be a busker. But our country is really terrible about busking, like musician buskers. And, you know, the permit process and the drama associated with someone just picking up an instrument and playing. And yeah, please give me a few tips. That's great. But it's gotten so regulated. But Venice Beach is pretty wild going out there. And just seeing people do the most outrageous acts and performances. There was the umbrella lady. And she had to be in her 90s and she was out there on her bikini twirling umbrellas, like seriously. And then there's the dude on roller skates with the big turban on the, you know, and he's been in a bunch of movies. Gosh, he's got to be older now too. But there's just all these different characters. And it's like, it's the celebration of you can be whatever you want to be, man. Just let it be. Let it all hang out. I mean, it was just fun to be free that way, I think, and the beach is perfect for that. And you've got the pier and who doesn't like walking down a pier. I mean, with a nice boardwalk. A boardwalk, however you want to say it, yeah, it's cool to do. But Julie, yeah, what about that in your area where you are now? Do they have that balance? I think that Delaware hand loads it pretty well. Like up and down the shore, there's limits on how high of a building you can build. So you don't see these giant high rises. You know, like you may see in, you know, some other beaches right in the town of Bethany, you know, the parking is, you know, an issue where, you know, department parking in the summer months. We have some great date parks around here as well. There's the Delaware Seashore State Park. One fantastic camping facilities if you like to camp. Handloping State Park is also another, you know, really beautiful, very like wild nature, you know, untouched place to go. So we have a little bit of mix of both. There's some development, but there's also some great places to get out. Where you, you know, you won't see, you know, crowded beaches and things like that. Oh, that's cool. That's cool. And now going over to you, Joe, obviously you've got public beach so you can do your yoga, right? So you've got spaces and you've got the State Park too, I believe, because I think I went there. We've got two state parks, Myrtle Beach State Park and Huntington Beach State Park, both on the ocean. With 60 miles, the grand strand is 60 miles long. It encompasses 14 different communities, which have 11 beaches, I think, in all. And they're all public. There may be a resort. There are a couple of campgrounds that are oceanfront and those are private. But if you're on the beach, you could walk right through because you can't fence off the beach. I went to talking about piers. It's funny. My neighbor and I went to a pier just Saturday. We went up and spent Saturday afternoon going to two different piers in North Myrtle Beach. We have the longest wooden pier on the East Coast. So we went up there to that and they were having live music that night. They have a really good restaurant on the pier. And so, yeah, it's mostly all open. Now, parking is an issue in some places because you got to get creative to find a side street two or three blocks over where you can park legally because there's not always not even parking garages. There's like private parking lots for the homes. The town I'm in, we only have one hotel on the ocean and the rest of Surfside Beach is all private homes. So it's not like you can just pull in the driveway and park. They're all private homes, but there's access in between each one to get to the beach. You just have to have some more to park or some only two blocks back. So I don't have to worry about parking until I go to yoga. She got it right. Well, you know, but that's the same thing. Like if you go in Southern California, highway 101, very famous highway to do all the way up the coastline and it goes into one as well all the way up to, you know, to Washington state and actually into Mexico. But, you know, you park in these little teeny parking lots and you have to work around the houses and, you know, that's, you know, how communities developed and grew, but there's always got to be that place for the public, I think. And it's been a thing that's been going on in different areas. I know Hawaii has been battling that a bit to keep some things, you know, public, you know, for the locals and the residents, especially with the rise of vacation rentals and Airbnb things. There's been an issue with that. But I think the beaches is, you know, really, really cool. Now, I want to know if you're going to have some food on the beach, is it going to be a picnic? Is it an ice cream? What is the food that you're going to have because you all write about food, wine, and travel? So, you know, I met all of you through the International Food, Wine, Travel Writers Association. Everyone check them out at ifwtwa.org. We love them. And really, I know, you know, food is part of it. I mean, whether it's seafood, you know, and something I can't eat because I'm allergic to it, but let's talk about this. So let's start with you over in North, I was going to say upstate New York. I can't believe you're all the way up there now. I'm going to have to come see you somehow. I know it's going to be like 63 degrees tomorrow here. Oh, wow. Really, truly. But yeah, well, you know, when we used to go to the beach, we would always bring a cooler. There would always be grapes and, you know, some kind of cookies. I don't remember what we drank soda or mostly I'm always a big iced tea person. So this was pre packaged iced tea. My mother always made a big pot of tea and we would add lemon and sugar to it. But yeah, there's, but then you get like, you go to Montauk and Montauk. Well, I was going to say everybody was talking about the state parks. Montauk has a state park where you can camp right on the beach. And the ocean, you hear the ocean overnight while you're sleeping, but you know, you have people barbecuing and cooking and in their campers or in their tents. And so, you know, it depends on what beach you're at and what, how much there is available. But we always had a cooler day full of, you know, quick eats, fruits, cookies, drinks. Cookies in the beach. We used to have Christmas at the beach. Oh, my God. When we lived in South Africa because it's summer. And so we'd always go to the beach and we'd make ice cream. We did make our own ice cream, take our sandwiches and we'd have our naughty treats. And we'd go to the beach and take in the cooler and we had ice cream first before it would melt. So we were allowed to have dessert first on Christmas. Well, they always did. So they would tell the ice cream, the soft serve it at the stands and then always, always New England clam chowder or Manhattan clam chowder. That was another thing. Ah, the clam chowder. No, no, everybody. I mean, the ice cream is important. I mean, the ice cream at the beach, you know, it's, it's mandatory. It is, it is mandatory. Every peer has a, has an ice cream shop. So yes, it's mandatory. I'm going to have to put a link to Joe's interview on her podcast about the food of, you know, Myrtle Beach because it's insane. But obviously seafood and hush puppies, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Hush puppies. She cramps the oysters. Yeah. That's cool. That's cool. Yeah. But just for a snack to take to the beach, maybe a wine cooler and crackers. Cheese crackers. Oh. Already made into the cracker because, you know, the cheese gets, yeah. Then you have to deal with the cooler and all that stuff. I understand. Yeah. Everything pre-done because the sand gets in everything. And, and you can't have a big production of things to eat because the golds will take it away. Oh, yeah. That they dive bomb you. It's like, you see, and, and I get so mad. I see people throwing up a chip or two to feed a gold. And I keep trying to say it's not just a goal. It will be a thousand in five seconds because that goal has a big mouth. He's like, Oh, food over here, everybody. Oh, my gosh. Well, and we went to Point Reyes National Seashore a few years back and, you know, it's out in the, it's just north of San Francisco and the Marin County. And it's awesome because it's like that rugged beach. But then there's areas that are like, you just want to go and sit in the sun and put your umbrella up and stuff like that. So it's got a nice balance of different types of beaches and they have elk on the beach. So that's a huge thing. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. Now the north coast of California, the beach thing. Don't even get me started. There's our beach. It's a state park and there's redwoods. And you drive through the redwoods on a dirt road. And it's got, it's like Jurassic Park style with huge ferns and everything and you get to the coast. And there was just blackberries everywhere and elk on the beach, eating the blackberries. That is awesome. And you have pictures. I want to, you know, I did years ago years ago. I've got that from many, many years ago, somewhere in storage because that was before digital actually that we, we ended up at some weird motel that had Astro turf in the hotel rooms. All the, all the cats came in. Nancy and I drove past there about a year, two years ago. And the motels no longer, but, orick. It's really, it's a lot of work has been done with the state parks and save the redwoods leak to save these redwoods. And if you go to Trinidad and that whole coastal area going up Crescent City and that's where the tsunamis go. Right. So that's fun. That coastline is amazing, but there was berries and elk. So, but anyway. Yeah, the food that going back to the food, when you were talking about the seagulls, when we were at Point Reyes National Sea Shore, we went with my friend Chris and his little daughter. Well, she was little then. And we're all like, we found this little water, like a little bit of the coastline, you know, comes in the little like stream area, but it's not a stream and sand dunes and these vultures were circling us when we had our sandwiches out. Like seriously, we're being surrounded by vultures. And so we moved under the beach and there's this big, huge driftwood, like log, and we're all sitting on it. And we see the vultures in the distance, then we turn our heads again. And then I zoom in with my camera and the vultures were feeding off of a carcass. And here we are eating our lunch and we're all eating together. It's probably not the nicest thing to promote, but I thought it was kind of odd, you know, for us to be eating sandwiches. You know, I thought about when you're talking about some of the things that the beaches, I remember that Hungary has like Balaton, which is called the Hungarian Sea. It's a large lake. And the thing that they eat there is called Langos, and it's like deep fried, you know, almost like donut consistency, but it's savory and they put garlic and cheese on it. It looks like a pizza, but it tastes like a donut with garlic and cheese on it. And then they also have, you know, other things like pizza and sausages at the beach all the time, but Langos is like the go-to food. Pizza, I didn't, that explains a lot now that I'm finding out that we really are Hungarian. I understand my food choices. I do, I do. Julie, come on, let's hear about your food side. Yeah, so I mean, in my cooler, you'll probably find a beer or two, but yeah, yeah, but on the non-alcoholic side, snow cones are very popular here. So there's a little truck that, you know, dries up and down the beach and everybody runs to get their snow cones, so that's definitely, you know, a snack that helps cool you down. And we always like to bring subs. There's a sub shop, you know, across the street from the beach that, you know, we like to bring those down and have them either for lunch or if we're hanging out there in the evening, you know, a nice Italian sub. And you do gotta mind those seagulls because I have had a seagulls, snacks, an entire Italian submarine from my hands. Wow. Yeah, yeah, so, you know, much like a dian said too, you know, the things that we'd snack on are like, you know, grapes and pretzels and, you know, things like that. But, you know, snow cone is definitely a good treat. And then, you know, up here in Maryland, Delaware, you gotta have a good crab cake. And those are also, you know, fun treat down here at the shore. Oh, crab cakes, that's right. You guys at Maryland, that's interesting about the snow cones because isn't that the big thing in Hawaii is snow cones. Oh, yeah. No, it's shaped ice. They do shape. Yeah, that's different. You know, my husband, no, my husband will always correct me. There's different. There's snow cone. There's shaved ice and, to be honest with you, I can never keep it straight, but, but yeah, you're right. Hawaii is a huge device. Yeah, Italian Italian ice at Coney Island. Mmm, Italian ice. So what's, oh, okay. It's very creamy. It's almost like a creamy insistency. It's not too icy. It's, it's kind of be too, well, almost like a sherbet, but it's very fruity flavored. Or vanilla, you can give vanilla flavor. Oh, I like the vanilla. See, we had what was called cream soda and I've seen it here. But here it's like Italian cream soda and it's like yellow and in South Africa, it was green. Green. Oh, in New York, it's brown. Yeah, it's like yellowy brown and isn't there like an egg cream soda or something? It's such a thing. Yeah. It's not, it's not really, yeah, it's, it, you would think it was like a milkshake, but it's not. I don't remember what's in a chocolate and something my father used to love. Oh, and then when you go. A root beer float. Oh, yeah. My drugstore makes those. Mm-hmm. You have a drugstore? Yeah. Well, it's a, it's an apothecary. Mm-hmm. And so they have a soda fountain and they have a once a year, they have a soda jerk contest. Yeah. And then Martin, did he enter? Sorry. Yeah, that's true. He has it. Yeah, he'll show up. I know. I was, when he got on the phone booth and he's, sorry, I love that maybe the jerk is the best, right? It is. But to have a actual soda fountain is unique because they've, they're gone. That's like a historic thing now to see a soda fountain. Yeah, it's something to have to come down. Yeah. Definitely. Definitely. Yeah. Because I'm a pharmacist. And so, though I don't practice anymore, my first pharmacy that I worked in as a student had, you know, an old school pharmacy with a soda fountain. So that's very nostalgic to me. So definitely got to come down. Definitely. I think it all started, like, how did we get soda fountains in the pharmacy? Because a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down. It was Mary Poppins. Yeah. I mean, but I mean, that's part of like culture. That's part of our pop culture, right? It's going to need to sound a fountain and like the diner, you know, era. Isn't it all part of it? And diners on the beach. That's a whole part of lifestyle too. You know, and then we change and then we go. Oh, yeah. I mean, sloppy joe's hot dogs and the bowery. My, my best friend and I, oh, it was about two or three of us actually used to sell hot dogs and hamburgers on the beach. And we'd take our little cart and our little gas flame and cook them and serve them on the beach. Was that in South Africa? Yep, and Port Elizabeth. Well, that was how we raise money. And then we found out that the company was a front for drug money, but it was our working thing and people would come and we're like, yeah, here, take a, take a free one. And we were at the beach on our own just standing there going, this, you know, we didn't have cell phone back then. So we're just like, if it was windy, you're going, you're going to be blowing with the wind. But it taught you stuff. Come on. I think anytime you do things like that, it teaches you taught us customer service. It taught us so much. But it was not that easy to do that kind of job, you know, in the wind on the beach with a grill, you know, no kidding. And I was really mad at the end of that with when I found out it was just a big front. I wanted to be the head sausage queen, but I wasn't. Well, no, really, I didn't. But thank you all so much for talking about beaches across the country around the world. I think we've done a great global perspective and we have some more global segments coming up. So everybody stay tuned. Thank you so much, everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Sue men. Thank you. Thank you. Go to National Park Traveling dot com our website there and type in Julie D. Sue men and it's as you ma n. What's the best thing for everyone for social media see by Julie, right? Yeah, it's see by Julie D. You can find on Facebook or Instagram at Steve by Julie D. And then, yeah, for beaches for beaches. I have on on discovery days.com a story about Sad Carver. So that's a recording. Perfect. I love that. And then keep up with Joe. You know, she's always got that glass in hand. So go to have glass will travel dot com and also hear her on big blend radio every second Sunday at seven p.m. Eastern time. Thank you, ladies. Take care. Thank you. So eat some ice cream. Yes. All right. Okay. Bye. Bye. Bye. So we're going to continue talking about best beaches here on big blend radio. And of course, our friend Lisa Evans is back on the show. She is coastal Mississippi. She's written about it. She's a travel writer and photographer. She travels the country. She sure does. But in the world, but she really does have a passion for her backyard, which is coastal Mississippi. She even wrote the book 100 things to do in coastal Mississippi before you die. And encourage you to go to our website writer, Lisa.com. So welcome back Lisa. How's your backyard? You've got some waves rolling in yet? No, well, not so much waves, but it's definitely summertime and it's definitely hot. There's, there's a lot of people that that are out enjoying the beaches. Thankfully, they've got their umbrellas and sunshades and and little canopies in the whole bit because you definitely needed it is hot and it is sunny and that the sun is brutal here in the summer. Well, you know, you know, best beaches day is what August 30th, which is interesting to me. It's like, Oh, quick go before the fall. But then like for where you are coastal Mississippi, you can pretty much go to the beach year round and be all right. It's not wheezing. Yeah, you can. Obviously, I, although I have seen people do it, but again, we, you know, us, we locals here are like, yeah, I wouldn't be in the temperature of the water, you know, when it's 60. But if you're from Wisconsin or up in Canada somewhere and you came all this way to go to the beach, you're going in the water regardless of the temperature of it. And you see kids, I mean, I seen kids in March, splashing in the beaches and, you know, while I shiver and go, Oh, yeah, I wouldn't do that. You know, they're loving it. So, I mean, it's great because again, you can, I mean, I don't know that I would recommend hanging out, you know, in December and January so much. But, you know, February, March, it starts to warm up and depending upon your level, but come April, May, the water is just beautiful and, you know, summertime. Right now, I want to say the water temp out there is probably 88, 89, 90ish somewhere in that vicinity. So it's warm. I like it. Yeah, you know, I know that you come from back upstate New York as people can hear in your accent. So, you know, you love this weather. I do. You're around because it's even different getting those coastal breezes in the summer too. That's nice. Absolutely. Yeah, I just, I love to see. You can be lying on the beach and it's 98 degrees, but there always seems to be a breeze off of that water. So, you know, yeah, 98 is hot, but, you know, the breeze brings it down a little bit and it's just, it's lovely. And I mean, honestly, I like it in the evenings when the sun is starting to tip down it, it cools off some. And then, of course, we have some of the most amazing sunset that you could ever, you could ever even think of. That's, that's the thing. I love the sunsets, the sunrises on the coast, the water. Just, and just seeing everyone start their day that way is really cool to see surfers. And I mean, do you guys, do you have surfers out in your area on the, on the surfing? No, we don't have surfers because we don't really have waves. Now, again, where I am, we are on the coastline, but we do have barrier islands that are about 12 miles off shore. So, they tend to break all the way, you know, the waves. I mean, we, we get waves usually before a storm, but the Mississippi sound is actually quite shallow. So, you can walk out on the sandbars, like, you know, at low tide, you can walk halfway out. It's, it's really kind of cool. You how far out you can walk on the sound when, when the tide is out. And then when the tide comes in, obviously, you can't do that so much. But because of the, the fact that we don't get the direct waves, we were an estuary. So, we have great seafood out in the Mississippi sound, but it prevents, you know, like you can't really get seashores unless it's been a storm and they've come in from far off. But, you know, it's basically a little bit, you know, it's, it's not, I won't say murky because it's just not the pristine blues, blue water that you're, you envision on the coast. Our beaches are white sand. We have 26 miles of them all along the coast. But then, then the water's great. People are in it all the time. Now, if you go 12 miles out on the barrier islands, we have one of the barrier islands that's called Ship Island, you can take a ferry out there. And if you want the pristine, beautiful blue water, white beaches, you know, nature at its finest with the, with the sharks and the rays and the crabs and the minnows, you know, the fish galore, you would go out to Ship Island and enjoy that beach. That's absolutely spectacular. Spend the whole day. It's just lovely. Yeah, now I love this that you have these different experiences on the coast. And, you know, the, the beaches to me, yeah, you know, one place will have the, you know, the turquoise, blue water, some murky or indifferent. But I think each has its own web of life, you know, as we always talk about the web of life, because it has to do with what creatures live there. And then there's always, you know, lie on the beach. It's beautiful. It's fun. I think it sounds like your beach would be great for paddleboarding more than surfing. Yeah, maybe kayaking kayaking is great because one, you know, a couple of the, a couple of the barrier islands, there are several of them are close enough that it's a nice, it's a nice little kayak and you can go out there and, and, you know, we have people that kayak out and hang out on the beach. And we actually have a lot of people like they, they form volunteer groups because they go out and they clean up the islands because not everybody treats when they visit the barrier islands, not everybody treats them nicely and leaves behind trash and whatnot. So they have like a lot of corporate groups that will volunteer, you know, for community service and whatnot and go out and clean up the trash on the on the outer beaches. Now a lot of people have boats here on the coast. So, you know, you can get to any of the barrier islands by boat. And, you know, you go out, you, you know, anchor your boat and you swim out there. I mean, you can basically swim wherever you, you know, we are have a lot of water. So you can swim wherever you'd like. And we have condos along the beach. So, you know, obviously all of the visitors, all of our tourists love, you know, walking across highway 90 and they're on the beach, literally. Like, I mean, highway 90, it depended, you know, is on one side, you have the beach and the other side is, is like our village, our cities. So it's highway 90 is basically the scenic route and I'll tell you what, there is absolutely nothing more calming and better than to drive along highway 90 and just look at the beach. You know, you can have the worst day and just driving along the beach is just, it's just fabulous. And golf court, you have a lot of beach areas and facilities and parks. So like a family, it makes it easy for them to be able to have restrooms and things that moms and dads want to have at their, you know, grandparents want easy, you know, you have a lot of. I call locals call them be the beach pull offs and people will pull in there. I mean, people, there are some people that are here for the long weekend that bring, you know, they, on the back of their truck, they have the barbecue grill. And they'll pull it out and they'll barbecue on the beach. And, you know, there's fire pits. Those you do need a permit from, from the various city that you're in to have a fire on the beach. There's beach fires, there's restrooms down. I mean, Biloxi has them all over Gulfport actually has a great beautiful park called Jones Park. And it has a splash. I like that. Yeah, it's just, it's beautiful. There's a lot of events and, you know, at Christmas time, they have Gulf Park Harbor lights and it's just wonderful to walk through Jones Park. And you, you see the beach, you got the beach, you got the beach breeze and then all these Christmas lights. It's really kind of cool. I love that, you know, because that's again, beaches are for year round, you know, visiting and it's not just again about the typical beach umbrella kind of deal, you know, and I love all that part of it. But I also think, you know, beaches and coastal cities have their own vibe. And even when it's winter and it could be freezing cold on a coastline, depending on where you are in the country. You know, you got, you got some twinkly lights, man. It is magic, man. It is so cool. There's something about twinkly lights and beaches. I'm so in. And I love Christmas parades like the boat parades. Oh, we're going to have to do a whole show on that now. Yeah, we do. I mean, we do. We have the boat. I mean, we have the boat parades, you know, the shrimpers because obviously our coastline is known for its fresh Gulf shrimp. So we have, we have a parade of boats that go that all decorating them. I mean, these people get into it. And then you got all the shrimpers with the big, with all the decorations on them and they have a boat parade. You know, it's just really cool. Like each of the different cities along the beach because you have to remember coastal Mississippi is an area. There is a, you know, there's like 10 different cities. So like the base, St. Louis is one that's literally on the, you know, close to the Louisiana side of coastal Mississippi. And they have, I think it's called snowflakes in the bay or something. And they're, they're, they hang from the street lights, these big sparkly snowflakes and it's just really cool. Golfboard has harbor lights. Biloxi has the boat parade and they have the town green where there's all kinds of Christmas decorations. So it just depends upon where you are on the beach and what that city is doing for the holidays. And it really is cool. Because like you said, they're 12 months a year now. I'm not saying you can swim 12 months a year, but there's something always going on. You can walk along the beach. There's nothing to me that's cooler than walking along a winter beach because it's, you know, the tourists, a lot of them are gone. It's very quiet and, you know, depending upon the weather of the day, it could be sulky. It could be great. You know, but a winter beach is really cool to walk on. And it's drama. And it's, there's a drama to it. Right. It's got this mysterious kind of thing going on. And at the same time, it can be completely romantic that way, too. Like I'm just saying. The other, the other thing that's really interesting to me and I've done this many times is, you know, when there's a storm out on the Gulf, you know, could be hurricane could be travel, could be just the thunderstorm. You can watch it and you can see if it's going to come ashore. You can watch the clouds bubble up and, you know, and then, of course, if you're, you know, you're smart and if you see it getting kind of close, you're going to, you know, head off the beach. But it's really, it's really interesting to watch the cloud configurations. I mean, you could be laying on the beach because they do have, you know, the chalomages on the beach. And just watch the, watch the weather roll in. It's, that's kind of interesting. That's cool. That's cool. Well, thank you so much, Lisa. Everyone again, keep up with Lisa writer Lisa.com. We've got links in the episode notes going to some of her articles destinations that she's written about. And of course, go get her book, you know, especially if you're going to be in Mississippi. You want to go get it 100 things to do in coastal Mississippi before you die. One of them is go to the beach, y'all. Thanks, Lisa. Thank you. We're continuing to celebrate beaches for National Beach Day, but hey, who doesn't want to go to the beach any day? We've got Rose Palmer back on the show. She is an awesome travel writer and photographer. And you can keep up with her stories. Go to her website quilt ripping.com or quilttripping.com. I'm just messing with you because I want people to know there's one tea in there, but Rose does love quilts and she likes to go tripping because she loves travel. And usually she's on the show talking about cruises. We'll be doing that soon in the fall with her doing a special podcast just on small ship cruising, but, and she does it around the world. Trust me on that. But something she's, you know, at the beach via boat. Right. But today she's going to talk about one of her favorite beaches. So where is that Rose and welcome back. Oh, thank you. It's good to be back. So my favorite beach is here in the States and it's Ocean City, New Jersey. And it's my favorite beach because that's the one where we have been making family memories for over 30 years. And it's a very, yeah, it's a very family oriented beach. So we started going there when we first moved out here to the east coast to the eastern side of Pennsylvania. We lived in Pittsburgh. We moved here. We know the brand new one Valley where I live now. And our good friends from Pittsburgh would go every summer for a week to Ocean City. So to be able to stay in touch with them and for our kids to, you know, continue having fun with their kids, we would meet them there for a long weekend when they, when they were visiting. And we did that for, oh, I don't know, quite a number of years until basically the boys on both sides were teenagers and starting to work and started interfering with vacation time. And then, you know, because we don't live that far away, we would still go occasionally. But then, you know, time passed. My children grew up. My son got married. He had his first son in my first grandchild. And we were in the pandemic and we were coming out of the pandemic. And my husband and I got our vaccines and the very first thing, you know, the very first trip that would get me out of the house finally was to Ocean City, New Jersey with the family. I booked a house on the beach. It was May. And, you know, my son, my daughter-in-law, my, my grandson, I finally got to a morning tearing up. I finally got to spend some quality time with him because I hadn't for a year and a half. Wow. And, you know, he was three at the time. So I, you know, missed, feel like I missed out quite a bit of his growing up journey there. But my daughter came from Baltimore and we spent time there. And, you know, and now we've been going back, you know, for the last few summers, we, I'll rent a place for a long weekend. And we all look forward to it. And now the second grandson has come along and he's gone well. And one of the really nice things about Ocean City, New Jersey is that it's very family oriented. It's a dry town. So, no, you know, no bars, no alcohols in the bars. You can, you know, you can bring your own and drink it in your house. But you're not going to be going to wild, rowdy parties on the boardwalk. So it's very family oriented. It has a couple of really cute little amusement parks. Oh, fun. A ton of rides for the little ones. And, and yet there's still things to do even for the preteens and the teenagers. So you see the full range of ages there. You know, you know, you know, we're, we're now on the grandparents side sitting on the benches watching the kids as they go into their caves and in and out of the shops and all. And then, you know, you've got the moms and the dads and the teenagers and the preteens and, and the toddlers. So it's just a really fun place to be for, for taking the kids when they love beach time. And what style doesn't like beach time right playing in the sand. I don't care what age we are. I mean, we need it. And, you know, getting out on the beach, getting, you know, toes in the sand in the surf, you know, you know, just even taking a walk on the beach is therapeutic, you know. I love that all the kids activities like sand castles and all of that. But amusement parks. I mean, that's something I remember growing up in South African Margate. And it's in a tall and I think the tall has a different name now. But I remember in Margate, there was just pools everywhere and we'd pick what pool do you want to go swim in. Oh, no. I remember that being like an Olympic sized pool somewhere and we would pretend we're Olympians and we weren't, you know, but there was just things like, you know, you would watch movies and, you know, I remember watching Rocky and going, where can we run up steps? You know, and things like that. But it's those memories where you take some time out and it's good, wholesome fun, like you're talking about where they're going to miniature golf and playing all the pinball and those kinds of things, right, that you create memories together. Exactly. And there's a lot of mini golf places and my youngest grandson, who's three, he is just obsessed with everything golf. Oh, yeah. And he's good. It's amazing. He's three years old. And so we would go to a mini golf place every morning. And there was one, the very first one we went to, the way it was designed and the way they channelled the direction of, you know, once you get the ball in, I swear he must have gotten about six or seven holding ones. And there is nothing more special than seeing your three year old jump up and down because he got all in one. That's exciting. That's so, but that's kind of interesting. I wonder like what's going to happen as he grows up, like if he goes in that direction. Because that's always, yeah, you can't really push them. You know what I mean? It could just be a phase and they're really good at it. But, you know, obviously as I mind like he's, he's got focus skills, obviously. He does. Well, depends, but he's still, you know, yeah, but when it comes to, right, when it comes to something that he's, he's really interested and he can focus on it for quite a while, which is incredible for that age. Yeah, you're talking about memories. It's the other thing. It's, you know, my son, you know, we would take him and my daughter, they won't, when they were young. And now it's just so much fun watching him, you know, when we've gone back and just reliving the memories that he had from when he was growing up there and then wanting to share them with his kids. So, you know, one of the things that you can do on the boardwalk is rent series, which are for, you know, they're like bicycles. You peddle them. And they have their seats for four people and baskets in front for the kids and then they're covered. And, yeah, it's like an Americanized rickshaw, but you're cycling. Well, yeah, yeah, but you're not pulling anybody. You're, you know, everybody gets a sit and pedal. And you get, you can do that in the mornings up and down the boardwalk. And, you know, so the first time we got to do that with the boys. It was just, you know, and swatching him relive those experiences with from when he was young and with his friends when we were down there. It's just, it's just so much fun. That's awesome. That's great to hear. I mean, you know, just family time is good, you know, and talking about going through COVID and, you know, that was a brutal time for so many of us. You know, and I know there's horror stories of it all, you know, but the same time, it really, I think reminds us all what we can sometimes take for granted, which is those memories. And that's what travel is about is creating memories. You know, I know we all have that thing of like, Oh, we're in this country. We've got to do absolutely everything we can. But sometimes it's just like, you know what, go have an ice cream on the beach with the locals do. Seriously, I think we sometimes get a little bit over pressure eyes on all the things we need to do where sometimes just enjoy what the locals enjoy, relax, you know, take beach time. Ooh, beach time is good, man, just to slow down, you know. Do you find the kids on their phones as much when you're in that kind of like chilled out vibe that it's kind of like gathering new things. My grandparents are obviously too young for that yet, but, or even my kids. I mean, when we're on the beach where we're just playing in the sand or watching the watching the boys when they're, you know, trying to go in the water and just interacting as a family. And it's, it's relaxing. There's nothing else to do. You don't have to worry about doing any chores. There's tons of food on the boardwalk. You know, it's not the kind of food you want to be eating every day. But it's, it's that, you know, it's fun food, like, well, soft serve ice cream and deep fried Oreos and fried pickle. Oh, did you say fried Oreos? I have not had that yet. Oh boy. Then you have to come to Ocean City, New Jersey. Okay. Okay. Sounds good to me. All right. Let's go. You find Oreos. That's like, you know, because they do that deep fried ice cream to you in Mexican restaurants. Yes. Oh my gosh. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. I'll take it. You know, deep fried anything is like, it gives you this excuse, just really go for it. And you can go walk it off on the beach. And, and, you know, it's just, it's the beach is magical. And thank you for sharing your family memories and your destination for families to go look up. So, you know, check it out. New Jersey, everybody. You got to go to the new, the Jay-Z. Do you say Jay-Z when you go up there? Well, no, I don't say Joy-Z, but people. So I think people from some people from Jersey do say Joy-Z, but yeah, there's very, there's a lot of places on the Jersey Shore for everybody for all interests. And, you know, but Ocean City, New Jersey is very family oriented. So if you don't want to go to a wild and party place, that's the place to go. Awesome. Everyone, again, keep up with the rose at quiltripping.com, not quilt ripping because she doesn't want you to do that to her quilt or any quilt. Oh, no, no, no. Unless you want to rip up the material for making a quilt. That's different, like taking an old piece, right? And using that. But also see her stories up on blend radio and TV.com and nationalparktraffling.com where you off to. I know that you're off somewhere. So where's the next destination? This destination is Norway. So that beach. They have beaches. I was surprised to find that along the coastline, there are beaches with beautiful turquoise water. Now, I'm going in September, so I don't think I will be going in the water, but I definitely want to check out those beaches because they just look absolutely gorgeous with the mountains and the background and then, of course, you've got all the deep fjords. So, yeah, really, it's going to be a road trip for the most part. I'm also, I'm doing a one week cruise from Svalbard along the coastline. And then doing a road trip throughout the country and chasing northern lights. So this is a good year for the northern lights. Oh, awesome. Yes. Oh, I can't wait to follow you on social media with that. I love following you. You go all over the place. That's awesome. So of course you're cruising. But road trip is cruising. That's awesome. Everyone take care. Thank you, Rose. Thank you. We are still celebrating beaches. This is like an all day thing today, but we do not need a beach day to go to the beach. I think beaches are cool year round. And now we get to talk about that with Sharon Kurtz, who did go to a beach in the winter of this year. And that was out in Port Aransas, which is a beautiful area. Nancy and I barely missed her. We just kind of, you know, I think we could have waved at each other on the highway, you know, Sharon, when we went and when you went. But this is a beautiful beach area, a lot of wildlife and bird watching. So Port Aransas is in Texas near Corpus Christi and near the Padre Island National Seashore, which was cool. Did you go there? Did you get to the Seashore? I did not. We only went to Port Aransas. We did the Seashore and Port Aransas, but not as much on the beach on Port Aransas, which you did. See, we, you know, share, don't we? It's cool. And one of the beaches we did hang out with was in the National Wildlife Refuge, but you got to go there on a boat. So that was a little different. Yes. Port Aransas beaches, the South Texas beaches are underestimated. I underestimated them. Before I moved to Austin, it was too far to drive and I chose other beach destinations that I could fly to. But I was amazed with the wide sandy beachfront. You could drive on the beach. It was like nostalgic. It was beautiful and family oriented. That's cool. And that's the one thing too. You guys had like a little fire pick going, right? And like a family gathering around, you know, the fire on the beach. We did. It was beautiful. Now, they do these sand sculptures, you know, because they're sand castles, but what you were showing me in pictures looks pretty epic. Well, Port Aransas is known for what they call Sandfest. It's a festival in April. And sand sculptors from all over the world come and sand is perfect to pack and build sculptures. So they built all manner of just extravagant sculptures and their food and family fun time. And it is quite amazing what they sculpt there. Wow, that's cool. I want to go there. But what are those other little things that they have on the posts? Oh, they are bolts and buddies. The local women, they started, one of them started knitting and it's called yarn bombing. So they started knitting and they put these knitted sculptures on these posts in front of the beach. And now there's like 300 of them. And they're so charming, their characters and their chefs and they're all manner of people go just to see the bolts and buddies. That's cool, man. You know, it's cute. You know, and I think that's the same thing about beaches. And I think Port Aransas was just such an idyllic port, like port town and also a beach town. You know, just you wanted to have that ice cream cone. It's got all kinds of fun things. Like I remember the giant shark, you know, the surf shop kind of thing. So it just really looks like the perfect family place. And you get to go on a ferry to go there, which I think is cool. We all want to go on the ferry and hang out with seagulls. It is amazing beach destination that everyone should go to. And there are whooping crane festivals coming up in February. So, you know, even if it's cold where you are, you may want to head to the beach and go learn about these endangered, beautiful, majestic and giant birds. It's like the only place in America where they migrate to from northern Canada. They come down to the Texas beach to the Gulf Coast. And they have their little babies chicks with them. And they're amazing. They're huge, like five feet wingspan. They're the biggest birds you've ever seen. Very cool, very cool. Well, everyone, you can keep up with Sharon and her adventures go to SharonKKerts.com on her website there. And you can also follow her on Instagram and Facebook. And sometimes she goes on Twitter. I nag her on Twitter once in a while. But she's mostly on Instagram with all kinds of cool videos and reels and photos because she really does go around the world. So thanks so much, Sharon. It was fun. So we're talking about best beaches here on Big Blend radio because it's National Beach Day. But I know it's national. We should be talking about just America. But, you know, part of our country is populated by English people that came here many years ago saying, Hey, we want freedom of religion. And guess what? They set up shopping beaches across America, didn't they, Glenn? So we've got, we've got Glenn Burrows from Norfolk tours here. And you know, he is on our shows every fourth Saturday he is here talking about England. And he's the host of the English connection. But today we're going to find out about the beaches of England. And I think this is so important because you've got so many kinds of beaches, rugged beaches, beaches that make sound because of the pebbles on the beach. You've got the typical seaside with the pier where you can go get rock candy. You know what I mean, Glenn, and go on a ferris wheel. So Cornwall, you've got that in England. Exactly. You've got, you've got so much to choose from. I mean, the coastline of England, I did, I did actually do an article some time ago about walking. And if you walked around the coast of England, it was, it was literally four times longer than if you sort of walked the north and south, you know, because the coastline is so in and out. Sort of speak, especially when you're in Cornwall and Wales and Scotland, the coastline is so rugged that it is just unbelievable. So in Cornwall and Wales, you've got quite a lot of rock, rock coastlines. You've got some beaches as well, obviously. But in Norfolk, you've got some of just about everything. You've got cliffs that go down onto the sand. You've got mud flats that go out to sea and that that's just a sort of like mud and grass and birds for miles and miles. Then you've got the shingle beaches, which are some of my favourites, because I just love the noise of the sea coming in and out over shingle. That's what I was talking about, the pebbles. It's not pebbles. It's like a round of applause every time the sea comes in and out, you know, and you've got the golden sands, which is just unbelievable. When you're going around Norfolk and you think, yeah, you've got everything. You've got cliffs. You've got sand. You've got rocks. You've got mud. You've got sand and grass. You've got everything. Fossils. Yeah, fossils in the cliffs. Yeah. And the mammoth. And the mammoth yard. The mammoth is just along the coast in the cliff, because the one problem with Norfolk is that we do suffer from coastal erosion. But what coastal erosion does, it exposes the cliff face and it falls and then you get all of these fossils and that was where the mammoth came out. Obviously, it just came out of the cliff. So, yeah, you get everything. You've got a really great choice. And like you say, the pier. I mean, I was a chroma on Monday with my granddaughters and we went to the seaside. We didn't go on the beach. But yeah, they've got a beautiful pier that goes out over the sea and at the end of the pier is the lifeboat shed, which is where the lifeboat goes out from. So, it's straight into the sea off the end of the pier. Is that one of your favorites? Chroma Beach, because isn't that where you get the chroma crab that you like? Oh, chroma crab is to die for. Yeah, it's a beautiful thing. Now, but my favorite beach is one that I used to go to as a child. And we used to park up in the village and then walk probably about two miles down to the beach. We actually used to have to walk across a golf course. So that was a bit dangerous sometimes. Yeah. But there was a footpath over this golf course. And the beach itself is called Holton Next The Sea. And it had beautiful white sand. So you just went over the bank, which was all covered in marim grass, which is a very rough grass that used to cut your toes if you weren't careful. And then straight onto the white sand. And it was absolutely gorgeous. Wow. And it was great because there was nothing there. There were no beachside shops. There was nothing. The only thing you could buy was an ice cream at the car park. So when you came back from that beach, there was an ice cream van that used to sit there. But apart from that, there was nothing. And I think that's probably why my parents used to take us there because they can't save the money. Yeah. It's used to cost us 50 pence to park. And that was it. Right. But, you know, I love that because I think as childhood memories of, you know, is when we were this young free and we wanted to just go, let's go explore, let's have an adventure. We had this adventure mindset as kids. And I hope we going back to the beach is some of those, I think it brings back those memories and it helps us internally as adults to not be afraid of moving forward. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a bit like what we're going to talk about on another show is about wellness. And, and it is, you know, sitting on the beach and just listening to the sea coming in and out is just so therapeutic. And digging in the sand. I mean, now as a granddad, digging in the sand is as much fun as it was as when I was six, you know, because I'm digging in the sand and making castles. The thing is now, I like to actually make a proper castle. So I make sure it's a proper mot and bailey castle. So I've got my, yeah, I've got the mot and then I've got the moat going around it and I've got the baby, and I've got the castle on the top, you know, so I like to do a proper, proper castle. But, you know, just love it. See, I did, we did what's called dribble castles, where you're dribbling the sand and mud so it's almost like you're going to Mecca or something like it's something from like Northern part of Africa. It's all kind of gothic. It's not all large. No, it's not British whatsoever. But it's like this very otherworldly castle. And it's called Nancy wasn't going to buy me yet another set of things that get lost at the beach. And you will live on dribble castles. It's like having an icing bag and you're dribbling the sand in the water out. But it's really, when I looked at that, it was more artistic. And you could create anything. And then if you wanted to shape it up, you could. And then if you wanted to fix it, you could dribble again. Well, there you go. Dribble away. Yeah, take your bucket, take your bucket of the sea and get some water and then do some more. But you see, you like to keep up appearances, take Mrs. Bucket to the beach with you. Well, exactly. How that goes. It's so, so therapeutic. It is. Just playing in sand is just so, it just takes you back. And it's just, yeah, and it's good that your food, you bring a sandwich with you, right? You take your little cooler food. And you know that no matter what you do, sand is going to get in everywhere, right? Absolutely. And that's okay. A little crunch is good for your body. Well, it's something you remember for the rest of your life. That's right. Well, listen, Glenn. It's always fun to have you on the shows. Get up with Glenn at Norfolk dash tours.co.uk. I've got links to his episodes or not his episodes, but actually his articles and podcasts talking about England's beautiful beaches. It is a different experience for sure. So thank you, Glenn. Good to chat. [MUSIC] All right, so we're talking beaches while we're in the heart of Appalachia country. We're at the line on the Rose bed and breakfast in Asheville, North Carolina with our friends, Stephen Karen, Mr. and Mrs. Wild. They love music and they love nature and wildlife, and they do not have a beach outside of their bed and breakfast, but they have been to amazing beaches around the world. And I just want to start with Steve. You and Nancy have some shared beach places, beach spots. So tell us about yours, because I think Nancy, you've been there. Well, Huntington Beach is where we used to always go on the west coast in Orange County, I believe. That's your right. But we'd always go to the county side, because I don't know why beaches are better on that side. The city side, they let you drink. No. It's a little bit dirtier, but yeah, we would always go. We would end up over by a lifeguard at shower 13, right kind of out there, where all the action was getting closer to the pier. That's because that lifeguard gave out booze. I don't think so. I don't think so. Did you go out that way, Nancy, as a kid? Yes, but mostly we used to migrate over to Laguna Beach because that had all those rocky formations where you could find all the seashells and moles that are still living and looking at real stuff that's still moving. So you would go as a kid going, "We're going to need the beach to find a molesk." Yeah. Well, Corona Bell Mar had all that stuff, too, with the rock formations. They also had high pools where we went to kids to get on a field trip before, but my friends would like to go to Corona Bell Mar. We'd get and dig up sand crabs and all that and we're in the desert. Horseshy crabs. Horseshy crabs are a cool man, because you could pull them in your hands like that and they nibble. Well, I think what's cool about this is a lot of people think that Southern California beaches are put up the beach umbrella and just sit in the sun. And not realize the amount of wildlife is there. In San Diego, we would go down Cabrillo National Point. Cabrillo National Monument. They have those tight pools there where you can see, especially in the fall and winter is when you see stuff. So that's pretty cool. You can see, oh, should I say this, hermic crabs mating? It's interesting because the female has to drop her shell back a bit. That's all right. That is interesting. Pour your shell down, honey. Look at this. It's like, show your crab. I mean, so, it's going to say, so Southern California, and then you moved out and, you know, you moved from California to where after that. California went to St. Louis for a couple years and I met Karen there at a job and we didn't really think St. Louis a good place. And we got together. She enjoyed North Carolina. She had been there before, so let's go check it out. And you have some cool beaches here. We do. We have some very nice beaches. The Outer Banks is beautiful. National Seashore. A bunch of different lighthouses. Good surfing. Sand dunes. A little bit of everything. You were from upstate New York originally. So that was like, you had the lake beaches, which were much different. But it's different, though, in that like, we were at Lake Erie, right? Exactly. A few years back, and I remember seeing the most amazing sunset, and I forgot that I wasn't at the beach. Right. Because the lakes are so giant. And you have seagulls. Exactly. But it's different. Yeah, in a different way, it's nice. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so we've all been to different beaches around the world. You travel for a wildlife like Nancy and I do. I was talking about Nancy, I was talking about Melindy, and also Mombasa. Oh, Mombasa. And Kenya being awesome. South Africa with the garden root, which you guys have done. We have to bring white sharks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Gansbei. Yeah. Her manners. We say hansbei. Hansbei. Okay. You have to do that. But, so. The octopus that gets on your arm and holds you, and you're like, "Hello." Where's this? You see, oh, in Mombasa. Oh. And gets on your arm. I'm like, "Because I was playing with the coral." Oh, my. Yeah. Nancy's got a boyfriend. And then I'm looking because I read that their beaks are sharp, like they could hurt you with their beaks. And so I'm looking at it and I'm like, "Oh, I see the beak. Oh, don't do it. Don't do it." But it was a really interesting experience because I just put my other hand under and then he got on this and I flipped him over and he flowed it off and we were all good. Wow. Yeah. But he did leave such a couple marks. Well, I'm glad someone brought up the octopus, you know, you think about James Bond and all that. I've got to think. Octopus are such smart, smart. They're very educated. They are highly intelligent. They get out of their little aquariums all the time, but I wanted to talk the two of you because you've been to some places that most people have not when is being Tonga. Yes. So tell everybody where Tonga is because I can guarantee some people have not thought of where it is. Basically between Hawaii and Fiji. Yeah. It's just north of Fiji. It's not Pacific. I think it's right over the timeline if I'm not mistaken. Wow. Yeah. But yeah, it's down there pretty far south. It's not easy to get there then. No, not at all. No, not at all. They're a couple of shops. They're basically through. They're in Australia. One and two. Oh, okay. She's a nice stop over anyway. Yeah, it is. But, you know, it's on country or the bottom. It is its own country and it's one of a few. There's still a kingdom. Oh, it's the king you say? Yeah. One of the few places left with a king. A king of Tonga or not England. I am King of Tonga. I didn't make sure. I didn't make sure. No, you were right. I didn't make sure. So when you're there, one of the beaches, like because people think of Fiji with those beautiful like the waters that like that, it is similar, but yet different, more volcanic, I will say. Yeah. I will say more volcanic. Definitely. But there are some nice beaches. There's some nice lagoons because you have several, there's several small islands. So you have forming like a circle and where you have a lagoon in the middle where it's fairly deep and beautiful. I love the lagoons, man. You can just take a swim if you want or just lay back on the beach and watch for maybe a whale passing by. Sometimes they would go a lagoon and swim out to them if you were fast enough. Wow. Just do it from the shore route and take a boat to go see them. No, you just showed me today, Karen, some amazing footage. Tell us about this. So our friends back in Tonga own their Lulu-Goon Resort and we had gone there for seven years so we feel like their family missed them dearly because it's been a while. But they posted today about seeing an albino humpback whale and the pictures were amazing. Yeah, baby. And baby. Nonetheless, yes. That's cool. Oh, so cute. We were wishing we were there today for sure. But the bumps and the, I mean, when you think, when you look at a, I mean, it's hard to even imagine the magnificence of a whale from a photo to actually seeing it in person and diving with it. So when you see those ridges and those bumps, can you give us a perspective of the size? Like, when you think of those ridges, I mean, are those ridges like the size of an arm, would you say? Or like, they look, because they look pretty deep, but like, wow. They do. It's hard to put in perspective. Yeah. I mean, the bumps, you could say maybe the size of a softball. Wow. Or probably. At least on the adults. The baby is more. The baby's more like, you know, like maybe in order for a ping pong ball. Yeah. Depends on the size of the baby too. And the ridges. What do you mean by the ridges? They're talking. I know. They're talking down the chest. Down the chest. Yeah. And they do seem deep. I don't know. It's hard to say. I would say. We didn't really get that close to really tell. Unless, I mean, they got to be somewhat deep, because when they, when they're bubble feeding or lunch feeding, they got to open that thing up and they go and grab a whatever krill or sardines and then lower putting it out the size. Exactly. It's amazing that something so big is something so small. Exactly. It makes no sense. That's what I'm saying. So it's really those old. It's kind of like elastic. Yes. Definitely. Oh yeah. Absolutely. That's cool. It's crazy. That's cool. So that's a whole different beach experience for people to think about is. Absolutely. You know, the only places in the world you can swim with humpback whales. And do it with respect. Exactly. Because don't be that the whales kind of, it's regulated. It's regulated. You have to take classes if you want to be a guide, so everybody asks who wants to be a whale guy, has to take a pass about an exam and I'm not sure if they have to go out and prove themselves in front of a professional or something like that to show that they can do it. Probably. But they do have credentials. Yeah. Yeah. So they do it in a, in a positive way. Yes. Nothing. Nothing hurting the environment or them. Yes. I'm like, I mean Tahiti, it's just crazy. I mean, there's just a lot of people in the water. And all kinds of people in the water, I mean, hundreds of people, and as soon as they see something, they're just also, it's like a, it's a different experience and it wasn't a good one. I think that the fact that our waters across the world are getting so crowded with boats and people, that the whales in other mammals and fish are going to react to overcrowded conditions. Right. And they're bigger. Yeah. I mean, when their reactions are reaction, it's not like a, like a trout, I mean a reaction. Mm-hmm. It's a big reaction when a whale has one. Exactly. So, and you can't blame them because it's so crowded now, what they used to do. Well, and you can see the stress in the animal because there was a mother in calf and they were down near the bottom, I guess, and the calf came up so fast to get a quick breath and just go down that fast. One more down there. Yeah. Because, you know, we're going to do with all those people. Because it's kind of like what's going on with everybody clamoring around like, oh, do you see a bison and let's go in and take a selfie and then wonder why. Oh, let me walk out and put my camera in the face of a bison and then get angry when it charges. Mm-hmm. And then the animal dies. Yeah. Exactly. Because the ranger has no choice. No. So that, but that's something that we can do as travelers regardless of the restrictions and everything is we can have some healthy respect ourselves. Absolutely. And going to the beach, I mean, there's something just chilled out and when people start doing crazy stuff at a beach, that creates a drama. And so then sharks are going to come and get you. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. There's a solution to this. It's called telephoto lens for your camera. Yeah. I know. Right. It is. You really want to get close to an animal. Go get yourself a telephoto lens, then you don't put you or the animal in danger and those who are around here. Exactly. And everything too. Yeah. And everything. Exactly. Anything that you're photographing. Yes. So when you're in Tonga on the beaches, like are there like conveniences or not? What should people think about going there? You basically are, you're like, you're going to, no one's going to come and deliver a cocktail to you. No. It's not the resort thing. No. I want to just give people that I can. It's natural. It's natural. Yeah. And that's what we like about it. Oh, yeah. It's natural. Maybe old school Hawaii. Yeah. People would say it would be back in the 60s or something. It's laid back. Mm. You're not going to get. It's pretty rustic. Yeah. Very rustic. Not all the built up. Well, it's nice. Which is beautiful. I love it. I love it. Yeah. It's natural. And that's what we love about it. Well, everyone, keep up with Stephen Karen. We do a podcast with them every first Tuesday. The Adventures in Asheville show, every first Tuesday on big blend radio.com and keep up with them at lion-rose.com. They are Mr. and Mrs. Wild and they are always chasing music and wildlife in a positive way. They don't get too close unless it's a musician then, you know. No. Well, then it's okay. They want it. Yeah. That's what it is. Beelmania. Yeah. Yeah. No. Thank you for listening to Big Blend Radio's Vacation Station Travel and Leisure Show. Brought to you by Big Blend Magazines. Keep up with us at bigblendradio.com or blendradioandtv.com. Happy Travels. (soft music)