Back to the beach again yesterday. Siesta has 98% quartz white sand which feels like you are walking in flour. The beach decends very slowly into the Gulf. I was about 100 yards from shore and still standing on the bottom. I swam about 20 yards out further and found a sand bar some others were on, which was only a bit over waist deep again. The kids could go quite a ways out without worrying about suddenly going over their heads. Here is Kiefer about 60 yards out.

Here is Andi's view of the beach...

but this is what it actually looks like.

Here is one of Kyler at Turtle Beach, which is quite a bit steeper.

The kids could only go out about 12 feet, compared to maybe 150 feet at Siesta. Today she hit some of the shops on the key while we are at the beach. She had a blast, but I must say it is much cheaper to swim. Later the boys each bought a sharks tooth necklace. Then we had bought homemade ice cream and took a nice drive around Blackburn Key. Andi conceded she would be willing to give up North Dakota and live in one of the 4 million dollar homes. I told her that her $10k in her 401k would only buy 8 palm trees..... which is actually true as my uncle was offered $1200 for the palm tree in his front yard, plus they would replace it with a 6 foot one. His is probably 25 feet tall, but my aunt would not let him do it. Housing prices have doubled in three years here, so that $4mil house would have been only $2mil 3 years ago. But the kids still want a rocket so they can go to the moon, so we probably couldn't have afforded it anyway.