Sea Shells!

The beaches on Florida's Gulf Coast are great for finding sea shells. They're basically everywhere... but especially in bands a few feet wide at the top of the high tide point. We saw this first on our visit to Barefoot Beach. Hawk started collecting shells there and continued at the several other beaches we visited. It got to the point she had so many shells that she'd take a bag of shells to the beach— they were the rejects she was returning, expecting to find better. 😂

Here's how her haul finished Saturday night:



To get these home safely she bought a roll of bubble wrap and cellophane tape at Target Saturday night.

Almost to Companion Pass

I've almost cinched Companion Pass with Southwest Airlines for next year. CP requires 125,000 qualifying points... and I've got over 124,900. I'm only a few dozen away. I'm so close I can practically taste it.

What's so big about Companion Pass? Recall from my explanation a year ago that it lets me get basically 2-for-1 tickets on Southwest when Hawk flies with me. So far this year I've used it on 6 round trips and 2 one-ways. We have another one-way booked already later this year, and there's a strong chance we'll squeeze in something else before Dec 31. CP has been quite valuable this year, emboldening us to take trips we otherwise might not take. It'll be nice to have it again next year.

Requalifying for CP last year (which extended it through this year) was a by-the-skin-of-my-teeth thing. I only earned the 125,000th point on December 16. This year I'll cinch it two months earlier, on October 16. The path's already laid in. I'll make it with ease.

What will be close is earning Southwest's other type of elite status, A-List Preferred. That requires 70,000 points— which are a different type of qualifying points than CP. And I only have 42,500 of them right now. The plan I formulated in January to renew A+ didn't quite work out. Too many work trips were canceled early in the year. But I worked out a different path to 70k with the help of a timely promotion Southwest came through with just last week. I'll just barely eke it out in mid-December, but that'll be good enough to keep us flying a lot next year.

Update: I earned CP one day after posting this blog! The car I rented to drive from Orlando to Jacksonville to get out ahead of Hurricane Ian gave me 600 qualifying points when I credited the rental to my Southwest Rapid Rewards account. Those points posted on Sep 29 and were enough to put me over the top. Now that I've secured CP through Dec 2023 I'm already thinking about how to requalify next year to keep it through 2024.