Sand Boots and Solar Panels

HONOLULU -- Some random vacation-brain thoughts:


1.  Walking in the sand would be therapeutic even if the ocean disappeared. Calf muscles get a unique workout and dead skin gets sloughed away and the body absorbs vitamin D (even if it's raining, I think). Probably walking in sand is where the idea for earth shoes came from. But getting a few grains of sand in your shoe is a nuisance (wow, could I not spell that word). So what if, inside a pair of over-sized rain boots, each of your feet could nestle in their own little sand dune. When you walk, you're walking in the sand. And the extra weight and the way the sand shifts as you walk would exercise your legs and your balance. Yes, it would make a mess when you take them off, but for a little while, you could almost hear the ocean.


2. Could an umbrella have solar panels? Power your cellphone as you protect your skin from the sun.


3.  I've had nightmares that I am in a school, barely dressed, surrounded by people I don't know, trying to find my classroom but not knowing my schedule or the building I'm in. Walking onto the beach for the first time in a two years was a little like that. I was surrounded by people I didn't know, wasn't sure if I wanted to swim or sit or read, and then I took off my beach cover-up and stood there, essentially in my underwear. It helped to take off my glasses. I could hardly see them, so they probably couldn't see me either.