Morning commute

I would estimate that approximately 99% of the world's population loathes their drive to and from work each day. In fact, I'm willing to bet that just about everyone who has to drive to work every morning tries to forget the experience as quickly as possible. After all, who wants to dwell on how much time they spend in their car on any given workday? Does anyone ever get to work and actually want to tell their coworkers about the experience? Perhaps only if they saw a 15-car pileup on the interstate and there was visible carnage on the roadway.

My morning commute now has two versions - the long and short versions. The short version is where I drive eight miles and make three turns to arrive in the Blackbaud parking lot. The long version consists of countless turns, twenty more miles, crossing two bridges and dropping Alli off at daycare. It's a rather boring trip, but it changes things up a bit a few days a week.

Well, this morning's long version was quite the exception for me. As I was on my way to drop Alli off at daycare, I crossed the first bridge as normal when something caught my attention out the side of my eye. I saw something spray up into the air and make a ripple in the otherwise placid water. I turned my head just in time to catch a dolphin breaching in the middle of the Wando river.

Other than the employees at Sea World, how many people can say that they saw a live dolphin on their way to work? I'm willing to bet not very many. And it didn't just come up once, it came up for air multiple times - enough that I could see its dorsal fin each time. Now I know that some of you might be concerned that I took my eyes off the road for a moment with my infant in the car, but this was worth it.

As soon as I dropped Alli off at daycare, I immediately texted Mommy B to tell her about my morning sighting. Naturally, she was quite surprised - and a little jealous. But, just as her previous post mentioned, that's the lifestyle we've come to embrace living in Charleston. You just never know when you're going to see a dolphin swim past you at the beach, an Egret fly over the highway or an alligator eat your golf ball. Each day could be an adventure when you live in paradise... you just have to slow down and take a look around every once in a while.