Hans Christian Andersen wrote, “To move, to breathe, to fly, to float… to travel is to live.” I’m packing my bag for a trip to the shark bite capital of the world. I’m gonna move, and breathe, watch the birds fly, and enjoy the travel but not float in the ocean. I’ve got my leopard skin bikini, my blueberry goat cheese and Club crackers, a quart of my homemade pimento cheese, a supply of bagels and fruit, a deck of cards and my poker chips, plenty of chewing gum, a bag of Hershey kisses, a gallon of sweet tea, and my Harlequin romances, just kidding. Those romance novels exasperate me. I actually have my Florida shore bird guide and a new book, Bird Trivia, Funny, Strange, and Incredible Facts about North American Birds.

New Smyrna Beach, Florida, holds the record for the highest concentration of recorded shark attacks per square mile globally. Won’t bother me. I just sit in my beach chair and let the waves touch my toes. Have not been in the ocean since I watched the movie Jaws. I’m just memorized by all the plovers and little sanderlings that chase the ocean waves to eat the small crustaceans, their tiny feet playing symphonies on the hard packed sand. “A traveller without observation is a bird without wings,” Moslih Eddin Saadi.

Also packing for the trip are the other three “Golden Girls,” oldest sister-in-law; her daughter, who serves as our chauffeur, cellphone finder, tour guide, luggage carrier, valet, and much needed chaperone; and my dearest friend from Alexander City. My niece is so kind and patient with us. She’s our drill sergeant and we obey. She’s probably checking the Maps app right now for directions to put us out at Shady Oaks on the way home. She is a jewel and I love her very much! I know she’ll count the minutes till she can be shed of us older, arthritic, deaf, blind, an incontinent women. We’re hoping my cousin, the fifth Florida “Golden Girl,” will join us at the condo. We’ll show her how Alabama girls have a good time! The trip is a glorious gift from her.

On our Florida trip last year, two of us had never been to Florida with a group of friends, one of us hadn’t been to the beach in 20 years, and the youngest had been several times that summer. I have never had as much fun in my life. The rain didn’t even deter me and my Alexander City friend from sitting on the beach and watching the waves and the shore birds. We golden girls laughed and talked and bragged on our children and grandchildren. We snacked and thrifted and boutiqued and enjoyed eating out. And they ate lots of cookies. This year we’ll be old pros in our travels and there’s no hurricane to break up our trip and chase us back home. I’ll never forget last year’s trip because it was full of laughter and love between the old and the young. I treasure those memories and look forward to this year’s memory makings.

The beach at New Smyrna is so hypnotizing in its beauty. You can feel God and see him in the vastness of the ocean, in the magnificent watercolorings of the sunsets. The white capped waves pound the beach with the rhythm of nature’s heart beat, clouds in blues and grays and whites sail across the aqua blue sky like an armada of warships. Life is so beautifully fragile and we’re never promised tomorrow will come. Live each day with love and joy and make lots of wonderful memories to sustain you in the darkness of the storms.

I think God wants us to be delighted by his creation of Earth. And as we travel his earth, whether home or away, “The Lord will keep you from all harm — he will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.”

“Take only memories, leave only footprints.” — Chief Seattle