Rainy day on the Spit

We awoke this morning around 2am to the sound of rain.  It rained all day and we were socked in with fog until about 6:30 pm, much different that what we see in the Four Corners area of New Mexico. Brad had been clearing the pad on our lot the last two days and what he found when he drove out there this morning was pretty much a mud bog.  He couldn't do any digging or dirt moving, but he had rented the backhoe for the week so he called out for four loads of pit run, the preliminary base for our drive and got that spread out.  I was off work by that time, so when he came home he suggested we go for a drive out to the Spit and take Brandy for a walk on the beach.  The trouble with that idea was that the wind was blowing about 45 mph on the Spit with a wind chill of about 35 degrees.  It was totally worth the effort, though, with what nature shared with us.
We spotted a bald eagle slowing to perch on a dead tree stump sticking up out of the water at high tide as we drove onto the Spit.  He was magnificent.  A moment later we spotted a huge otter floating on his back in the water not 50 feet from us, with something round and white laying on his belly.  We pulled over into the parking lot and got the binoculars out and saw that he had a fish folded in half and he was eating it.  He seemed perfectly comfortable with the growing number of spectators that had gathered to watch him.   We wandered over toward a group of buildings that tourists like to flock to.  A couple of restaurants, a chartering business, a gift shop and a FedEx outlet for shipping fish were lined up on a raised wooden dock of sorts above the water. 
We crossed the road toward the boat docks to look at the various boats tied up, and get out of the wind.  We saw at least ten boats that Brad said he would really like to have.  When our house in NM sells, we're buying a boat, he tells me.  I'm sure we will.  It was fun walking around the slips, even in the misty rain, watching Brandy bounce around, happy to be running free and not stuck under the camper as she was all day while it rained.  I was glad to be out too, and not couped up in the fifth wheel any longer.  I shudder to think we were planning to bring just a camper shell...thank you Bob and Teri for helping us see the error of our ways! So like I said, Brandy was running around all happy and in a split second,I saw her look down at the water and in she jumped!  Ok, that's cool, but how do you get an 80 pound dog out of the water that's a foot lower than the dock? She kept swimming away from Brad who was calling her, so I got down on my knees and grabbed her by the scruff until Brad could get down on his knees and pull her up.  Whew!! I had visions of falling in myself since I wasn't totally balanced as I leaned over to grab her.  Yeah, expecting a lab not to jump in the water was like expecting a kid in a candy store to keep his hands to himself!  She was totally happy now that she was all wet and we were pretty wet by then too, so I told Brad that we should head back for a hot bowl of chili and cornbread I was making for supper.  A perfect ending to a less than perfect day!