This isn't as great of an accomplishment as it might sound like it is. I can see the beach from my balcony of my apartment after all. We've lived in this close-to-the-beach apartment for quite some time now (a number of years) and Nadi and I used to go down here quite often. Lately though, our visits have not been happening because one of us got hit by a scooter while riding his bicycle and ended up with cracked and broken ribs as well as a broken shoulder.
It's been 3 weeks since that fateful day now though, and yesterday I went down to a beachfront coffeeshop and met up with an old fitness friend to discuss weight, fitness, and injury recovery.
The first thing I noticed when I got onto the sand was that there were very few people around and this is something that always makes me happy. One of the main things I do not like about the beaches in Da Nang is that there is normally far more people at them than I would prefer there be and I don't know if we are entering the low season or what, but on this afternoon and evening, there was far fewer people there than I expected.
This was a perfect day to bring a dog down to the beach even though when Nadi does go to the beach, she generally leaves the people that are there alone because she is much more interested in sniffing everything that is out there and isn't one of those dogs that immediately gets in the face of any other humans that are down there. Some people find this sort of thing cute and others do not, so I am kind of happy that Nadi normally won't even come to anyone if called to do so. I would also have her on a leach anyway unless we get far away from other people but it would have been very easy to have stayed away from people down on the beach this day.
There was just one problem though: I didn't bring Nadi with me. I would appreciate it if nobody told her because in situations like this, ignorance truly is bliss. I am not in good enough physical shape at the moment to be handling a lot of things at once plus, I painstakingly gave her a bath the night before and if there is one thing I have learned about more than a decade of taking care of Nadi, you give the bath AFTER going to the beach, not before.
When I returned home to her I am pretty sure she was upset with me, but after taking her out for a "poopy walk" and sitting outside to wait for our pasta and garlic bread delivery (she gets some of it) I think she 100% forgave me for going on this beach trip solo.
The rest of our night went how it normally does with me reading a book for a couple of hours before sleep took over and I went to dreamland. During the time that I was sitting there reading, a friend sent me a meme that I really enjoyed because it is so stupid.
I immediately sent this off to the other friend of mine that lets me borrow books from him and his response was "The dog would definitely enjoy that!" and yes, yes she would.
The walk down on the beach proved a couple of things to me yesterday: The main thing is that I have proven to myself that I am now ready for light exercise and I will start to do this on a regular basis. The second thing was that during a particular time of day, it appears as though the beach is going to be almost completely empty and the next time I go down there I am definitely going to be bringing my doggy friend with me.