this week's Saturday outing
Nine days ago we took advantage of Saturday's empty schedule to go on our first family outing of the pandemic time. I guess that's what we do now, because this past Saturday had us hitting the road again. This time we went to a beach.
beach!
It was Duxbury Beach, on the South Shore: it's not our usual direction, but the trip was also motivated by the need to pick up up a cache of whole wheat flour from Leah's cousin—which is a whole other story—so we got to see somewhere new. The beach is on a long spit of land stretching out into Duxbury Bay, and so visitors have their choice of the waters of the Atlantic (well, Cape Cod Bay anyhow) or the much calmer Duxbury Bay. Naturally, we headed for the waves first thing, but when we crossed to dunes to face the chill breeze on the ocean side we quickly turned back to have our picnic lunch back on the other side where it was a little warmer. It's still March, after all.
winter beach-wear
There was plenty to explore on that side among the mud flats and salt marsh; after we exhausted the possibilities of that corner we took a walk maybe a half mile down on the bay side before crossing over and coming back on the ocean side, the boys and I naturally picking up special rocks and shells (and in their case bottlecaps and bits of brick and glass) all the while. There were lots of people out and about, but on the beach it's easy to find enough room for social distancing. Naturally, we were the only ones to do any wading. It was a bit of a ways—we were in the car for just about as long as we were actually at the beach. But that's fine, because once again the boys hadn't been in the car for a week. And it's nice, every once and a while, to get a change of scenery!
new horizons
Especially when the scenery has salt water in it.