Last Dash for the Beach

So, it turns out that ignoring all of the urgent back-to-school sale fliers does not prevent summer from coming to a close.

This summer seemed to go by especially fast. Perhaps it was because I spent the first half anticipating the trip that would occupy the second half, which never came.

In my usual end-of-summer dash to soak the last bit of summerness out of the season, I declared that we would go to the beach Saturday, come hell or high water, or, as it were, hurricane.

It turns out that the day before a hurricane is a great day to go to the beach, because everyone else is not there.

We had the sand to ourselves for the first half hour or so, then only a handful of families joined us.

And though it was foggy most of the day, it was warm. Turns out tropical storms bring tropical weather.

We chose to go to the small, more sheltered beach, in case Irene was pushing big swells ahead of her, so that an errant wave would not wash one of our children to Nova Scotia.

The surf was mild, but filled with all manner of interesting flotsam, including several clumps of a weird, spongy seaweed that I believe is green fleece (aka dead man's fingers). Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of it.

We did all the requisite beach activities: sand digging (E made sand nests in hopes of attracting his seagull friends, Seagey, Pecky, Laughy and Colorey).

Synchronized reading.

Swimming, tidepooling, drawing, collecting, eating cheese and crackers seasoned with sand. It's the kind of day you wish could last forever.

After it all, though, I headed to Portland to meet my dear friend and her nice new (to me) boyfriend for dinner at my favorite restaurant, and, after sending them off into the hurricane (they had to get back to Connecticut), I happened to be driving through Freeport just in time to catch the last showing of The Passion of the Hausfrau, which I hadn't been able to get to this time around.