Cape Henlopen, Part III (The Beach)

Brace yourself.  I have a lot of pictures and not a lot more to say.  I just wanted to close out our camping vacation with some final thoughts on my favorite aspect: the beach.

Oh how I love the beach.  Or just the coast in general. And not just because it's our livelihood.  There's something so thrilling about standing at the edge of the world, and yet so peaceful at the same time.  The rythmic lapping of the waves.  The far expanses of sand and sea.  The ability to draw away from people, place and time and just focus, or not focus, on the emptiness around you.  It's calming, to say the least.







Well, until my boys show up.  And then it's a loud, boistorous playground.  Who knew so much could be found to do in pile of broken shells?

 

 

 

 

There are actually several beaches at Cape Henlopen.  The main one, with a bath house and other amenities.  A  more private one that most of the surfers frequent, that only has porta potties a good distance away. And another beach that we didn't visit. 

It never rained during the day, but we did have one very threatening cloud!

Showing us his crab walk.

Guarding the snack mix from seagulls ...  or big brothers.

Our first day there was entirely too windy for the oceanfront so we opted instead to leave the park and head about a mile down the road to Lewes' public beach.  We paid a whopping $1.50 to park (turns out the parking lot is very empty in the middle of a September week) and planted ourselves in front of a large sand dune to block the wind.  And the kids were more than happy with their lot of sand and ability to trek buckets of water to their sand holes.

Melissa and Doug cupcake sand toy.

"I make you special cupcakes Mama!!"

Seaweed sword fights!

I may have forgotten to put sunscreen on one day ... I'm paying for it now with a peeling face. :(

In addition to the old standbys - building sandcastles, digging holes, going on scavenger hunts - we created a few new activities this past week.  Like pseudo-skim-boogie-boarding.  Jack lays on the boogie board, and Poppa pulls him through the waves.  Jack says he's "surfing."  And we like to let him think so.







And then there was sand surfing - baby style.  Someone had the bright idea to pull Julia around on the boogie board in the sand.  She enjoyed it so much we started doing it every day.  The people around us enjoyed it as well.  There was lots of pointing, laughing and picture-taking of the little girl on her sand chariot.  And Girlfriend just soaked it all in.









Of course, all that attention can really take a lot out of you.  Poppa returned to our "camp" at one point and Lia was completely konked out on the boogie board, toe dragging off the side.  And she contentedly finished out her nap under the umbrella.



I gotta admit though, the highlight of our beach trip was when the Amish showed up.  Just one family at first.  And then a few more, and a few more.  Until we had around 20 parents, kids and grandparents gathered just down the beach from us.  In the beginning, they all stood around in their dressed, stockings, long pants and boots.  I was beginning to feel a little self-conscious in my tank top.  But eventually, one by one, they went to the bath house and came back in what I'm assuming was their beach gear - more dresses.  The guys were lucky though, they were actually wearing regular swim trunks. 

Inconspicuous photo of background.

I snapped this one while holding the camera in my lap.

And I couldn't resist this shot while in the bath house.

And they boogie board too!  Who knew!?

And you thought this was a picture of Jack.

On our last afternoon there, we rinsed down little bodies in the beach showers, loaded them into the car and started on the drive back west.  Our trip home went much more smoothly than the previous one.  Two-thirds of my babies napped and the other third watched a movie.  We made it home in less than 2.5 hours and were there to greet Daddy when he pulled in a few minutes later.  We spent the better part of the weekend unpacking, vacuuming up sand and catching up on home stuff.  Because just a few days later we were scheduled for yet another beach adventure ...