sprite writes
broodings from the burrow

June 28, 2008


a nice end to june
posted by soe 10:24 pm

The thermostat I passed today read 95 degrees. I grinned.

It was not because I enjoy ridiculously hot, humid weather.

Instead it was because we were on our way out of town headed to the beach.

Wouldn’t you have smiled giddily, too?

We headed to Calvert County to North Beach, which is out near where I visited Karen last summer. The town has cordoned off a shallow sand bar for a swimming area and it makes for a pleasant, if only knee-deep, place to cool off.

Keeping with the previous post’s theme, we saw a nesting pair of osprey, a heron, lots of gulls and ducks, and a mama duck and her six ducklings. We also saw a few fish and a tiny clear jellyfish or two.

Shortly after we laid down our blanket, the skies clouded over and we heard what might have been a single rumble of thunder, so I quickly popped up to hit the water in case the folks running the beach wanted people to evacuate the water. Lightning and thunder never materialized, although rain did, so I just plopped myself down on the blanket after I came out of the water and laid it out.

A few hours later we decided to head home. Rudi took me along some of his bike routes, curvy, shady routes off the beaten path that I could see why he loves. We paused at a little mom and pop ice cream stand, where we both got delicious milk shakes.

We also stopped at a farm stand along one of the main roads, picking up a few peppers, the first peaches of the season, and two ears of corn that we ate salted and buttered with hot dogs for tonight’s dinner. Hot and sweet and perfectly summery.

As we meandered home, we stopped at a P.G. County shopping mall where Rudi found tea and a bathing suit and I finally tracked down a mirror and a pair of sneakers. I will now be able to ride my bike again and look at myself in the mirror without having to stand on the tub and lean in front of the medicine cabinet. Contrary to what you might think, that’s not a really flattering pose, regardless of what you’re wearing.

As we hit the District line, lightning forked across the sky, piercing the clouds so the rain could seep through again. It started as drips, but once we’d arrived downtown, the skies opened up and just — dumped. The good thing about storms like that, though, is they don’t tend to last too long, so by the time we reached home (about 2 miles later, but factor in lots of stop lights), it was back to drips again.

It really was a wonderful way to spend the final Saturday in June, 95 degrees, torrential thunderstorm, and all.

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