Amelia Island...Beginning and Ending and Beginning Again

I am here on this island, Amelia they call it. Fernandina Beach, northern Florida, on the coast that lies next to Jacksonville. It is the third day of a 6 day vacation after a long, hard winter, a semester that wouldn't quite end and the death of a much loved pet who refused to close his eyes, even after the angels started singing to him.
Four days ago I was in my office (aka Zach's bedroom)with Little Guy on my lap wrapped tightly in a towel while I tried to carefully input grades for my 244 students on a drop-down menu saying the names I could pronounce outloud and asking Little Guy for approval on each grade I assigned. I want all my students to know that they are "A" people but maybe didn't quite give it that college try to receive an "A" in my class. Maybe they're going the George W. route by aiming for a C, but not everybody wants to be president or deserves to be.
Hmm, not going there.
So we left Buffalo after a 3 PM euthanasia and 7 PM funeral on Friday, our little old cat, (20 to be exact)buried in our backyard behind the shed with our three other cats, the kids in the soccer field behind us never stopping to notice; the laundry basket with our recently "Dead Guy", the shovel, Greg digging the hole deep. An ending, a beginning.
And now I am in the sand, my writing room a gazebo across from our hotel (Amelia Hotel at the Beach) quite lovely with seagrass on what Florida calls a  partly cloudy day which means there are no clouds over the ocean and a few piling up in the distance to the west.I've never been to Amelia Island before and today we are leaving after having done all that we nature-loving tourists love to do.
Woke up before dawn to watch two sunrises...

Went down to the Harbor on the other side of the island for sunset...

 and spent some hours at Fort Clinch State Park where we stopped along the canopy road at Egans Creek, stared across the quiet lowland marsh...

and turned our heads around and a few degrees upward to marvel at the Spanish moss hanging from live oaks (an epiphyte I learned from a sign on another trail).

We walked down a a half mile fishing pier, hiked around Willow Pond, a shady trail that promised alligators but did not deliver (do mudprints count?), stopped at the Visitor Center for the Fort but did not choose to go in because it was sunny and hot in mid-afternoon. Did I mention that we're in Florida? And for the $6 admission price per car, Fort Clinch State Park is more than worth it!
So now we're on to our next destination, St. Augustine, Vilano Beach, getting further away from the grades and students and kitty lying peacefully in the ground. On to more sunrises, sunsets, and whatever lies ahead in the vast unknown of travel.
Hello world. We are here to notice you.