Summer's Last Hurrah ... probably

Saturday and Sunday were incredibly gorgeous, high 70s, a cooling breeze, perfect sky.  Beach weather and many, many people took advantage of it. Saturday was the only time in my life I have been so desperate for a parking space, I parked in a handicapped space.  And then worried about the ticket I'd surely get.  I didn't.

Could a beach be more beautiful?  Only if there were no people on it except me.  That happens when I get there early enough, but not this  past Saturday.

The roses are gone but they've left behind fat, gorgeous rose hips, like so many Christmas decorations among the thorny vines and leaves which have begun to change color.








Since early August the horseshoe crabs have been molting.  Their shells often line the beach.

They are ancient creatures, 450 million years old, a group of them spawn on other beaches, but apparently not this one -- at least I've never seen them.  But they molt, all sizes and many colors from very light tan to dark, nearly black.  The largest are not only the oldest they are also the females,  so I've read.  I am fascinated by them. 

So many pile up sometimes that the tide line looks like a battle field after a massacre. But most of them are survivors and are roaming the bottom of the bay, with their relatively delicate new shell. They eat sea worms, some mollusks and the occasional tiny fish -- or so I've read. 

The season is ending, I will continue morning walks on the beach when I can and when the weather is not too chilly. I think my barefoot walks are numbered and the tan I've acquired over the summer will begin fading very shortly.  It was a beautiful summer from just after the Fourth of July -- until then it was chilly and damp.  Since then we have had one of our driest summers, record numbers of tourists and beautiful days with very few above the mid-80s and most not too humid.  It was a summer to really enjoy and I did.