Friday

On our last day Jason and I went out to watch the sunrise.

Some of us took a beach snooze later.

I love this.  We found a sand shark someone had made and signed.  "2020 Bites."

Caleb's timing on this thumbs-up was impeccable.

These were really neat cement blocks, only visible at low tide.  Which means if you played in this spot at high tide, the waves would smash your head into them before you know it.  At low tide you merely run the risk of getting knocked off of one slimy block into the barnacle-encrusted next one when a rogue wave comes in after you've been tempted out to the next-farthest block.  There is, of course, no warning posted whatsoever regarding the likelihood of death by blunt-force head trauma at high tide.  There is only a sign 200 feet away that says something about water-borne illness if you swim right there.  Jason says the blocks are holding down a drainage pipe that feeds stormwater runoff directly into the Atlantic Ocean. 


Is this America or some sort of maritime wild west?  And our local playground can't have a merry-go-round?


Anyhoo, Caleb discovered that there was another cement block buried under the sand, so he and Wyatt were kept busy for a good long while exhuming it with plastic shovels.


Below, Caleb acts as foreman.

Whiskers continuously charmed us (at least those of us who weren’t getting up in the night with him) all week.  I’d like to post this one to his LinkedIn profile.

Beach days

Don't tell Caleb, but Jackson got ahold of Ears.

Noticing a huge crowd gathered way down the beach one day, we took bets on what the spectacle was.  Drowning victim?  Heart attack?  Egg-laying turtle?

Nope.  Some fisherman had caught a 4-foot shark.  By the time we got down there to gawk, the crowd had dispersed but it was still twitching. (!)

Caleb, realizing the imminent doom to his sand castle as Wyatt approaches.

It was a sanctifying week for Caleb, who is unaccustomed to smaller people wrecking his stuff.

Jockey's Ridge

Playing the game of Life with Ada...and Jackson.

Despite my pessimistic expectations of catastrophic juvenile meltdowns, we braved the hike up Jockey's Ridge, thereby reliving Jason and Jo's childhood tradition, and it turned out quite lovely.

The kids actually perked up at the novelty of a mountainous sand dune.

We went up just before sunset, as per tradition.

Jeddy did not carry me up, as suggested, in repayment of our last Jockey's Ridge visit when he was eight weeks old and rode in my carry pouch (which memory may have had something to do with my dread of Jockey's Ridge).

This year that privilege was Jackson's.

The sunset on this particular evening was spectacular.

There were races down the hill.

Family photos were taken.

There may or may not have been total stripping of clothing and rolling around in soft sand and then standing up and facing the crowd when the sun had set and a hundred people were headed down at once.

(If it happened, it was only the youngest among us.)

Few tears, no catastrophes, minimal sand in the eyes, a sublime sunset, and no arrests for indecent exposure.  And no covid exposure.

I'd say the outing was a triumph.