Tuesday, February 5, 2008

do pelicans flock?

i was in a car with my parents, brothers, and grandmother. we were driving down I-4 late at night. we passed st. petersburg, which actually looked like st. petersburg... the one in russia, that is. it had all sorts of kremlin-esque buildings that were outlined with thin, blue neon lights. not only did st. petersburg look like russia and not florida, it was located in north florida instead of south-west florida.

after we drove through st. petersburg we began heading south to st. augustine. it was still late at night. as we were driving, we were parallel to the ocean. suddenly i saw the outline of a group of animals moving along the ocean. at first i thought i was seeing into the ocean and that the outlines were of whales swimming. but i soon reasoned that i would not be able to see underwater while we were driving parallel to the ocean. i refocused my eyes and determined it that it was a giant flock of pelicans. there were quite a few of them flying a long distance (and this i don't know - do pelicans flock? do the fly long distances?). it was a breath-taking sight. i remember feeling very privileged to be seeing such an event. i pointed this out to my family and it was decided that we needed to get to the shore to see them up close. so my dad began driving insanely fast so as to get ahead of the flying pelicans, so we could exit and then make it to the shore before they passed us for good.

my dad sped down the interstate, dodging cars and such. i held my breath and thought wow this would suck if we all died right now. we finally made it to an exit in st. augustine and immediately got lost in a mass of traffic and people. it was some sort of late-night street party. we realized we weren't going to make it to see the pelicans so we parked in a large parking garage and then went to a very busy fast food restaurant. while we were in the restaurant, there was a father screaming at his daughter and humiliating her. i felt so sorry for her and was getting worked up to go and confront the father when i got sidetracked by refilling my dr. pepper at the fountain.

after eating we headed back to the car but had to maneuver our way through a hospital first. as we were doing this, i thought about how cute my youngest brother looked and how it reminded me of when my other brother was his age (in the dream my youngest brother was about 6 years old). about that time i realized that my parents and mason and i had gotten separated from mark and my nana. but we soon found our way back to each other and made it to the car.

as we drove back to orlando, the sun came up and i was exhausted and a little sad that i now had one less day back home before returning to california.

2 comments:

Leah said...

That's a strangely beautiful dream. I love the imagery of the pelicans and the beach.

strovska said...

yes, i love all the visual mental images. i don't know if pelicans flock, but i have seen several of them flying together, if that helps.