I’ll Be Home For Labor Day

Well, we headed back home for Labor Day weekend, and all was well with the world.

We are most thankful; our house managed wonderfully well during Irene. There was virtually no damage. In face, believe it or not, my dune actually managed to gain some sand. Take a look at this picture.

As you can see, the sand is almost up to the railing at the bottom of the steps. I don’t have a good picture of the railing before Irene, but I’m guesstimating that our sand is two feet or more higher in that front part of the dune. This means Irene may have initially taken away some of the sand, but in the end, she gave back more than she took. For this, we are extremely grateful. It’s not unheard of for this to happen, but it could have just as easily done the opposite, which would have left our house less protected in the next storm, not to mention the potential property value impact that dune erosion can have.

We do think the water level went up onto the dune quite a bit, based on, among other things, this picture.

If you look in the center of the picture, you can see where the water began cutting up into the dune. Hopefully, Katia will behave herself and will not only stay far offshore and away from all inhabited islands but also will not kick up the waves enough to take back what Irene left.

And certainly, my deep sympathy extends to all who did sustain damage, some of staggering magnitudes, from Irene. It’s impossible to ever be completely prepared for the types of losses that many are experiencing right now. Hopefully, the losses from Lee and Katia and any other storms this season will be minimal for all.

At any rate, we spent three wonderful days on the beach, with each of us doing what we love best.

Baby-girl immediately grabbed some buckets and shovels and headed out to the shoreline to start digging.

My younger son found a toy left by the tenants, perhaps as compensation for the damage they did and the things that are now missing from our house. Methinks, in fact, that perhaps this topic of having tenants in your property might make for a good post at some point, since many of you also have properties that you need to rent out and have your own battle scars from the experience. I’ll put the idea on the backburner for now, but suffice it to say I would have rather had my own things back and not have grease marks all up my carpeted stairs right now than to have a small toy beach cart for my son to run up and down the beach with for a good half hour straight. This, incidentally, is what he did. Hey, at least he knew how to get his full five dollar’s worth out of the cart, and it was pretty funny to watch after a few minutes when I realized he had no intention of stopping anytime soon.

Oh, we saw several dolphins like this one here, swimming close to shore. They tend to be more prevalent in the winter, when I’m told they prefer the warm waters of the shoreline, but they were out in full force on Saturday.

Sunday afternoon, we had friends over to hang out on the beach, which was fun. My older son was able to reunite with one of his good friends, and they spent the better part of the afternoon boogie boarding and swimming in the surf.

In the evening, we sat out on the deck at dusk, my favorite time on the beach. There’s my eldest, breathing in what I like to think is some of the purest air on earth coming in off the Atlantic.

Monday morning, after a summer virtually void of exercise, I decided to go out running on the beach. LCB naturally felt led to take a few commemorative pictures of the rare event. He also, just to be obnoxious, took some strategic pictures of me stretching beforehand. These pictures have mysteriously disappeared. I know nothing about their deletion disappearance.

As we were driving back last night, I commented about how this trip, after only being gone a few weeks really, was already starting to feel like a trip down memory lane, one stocked with memories of the best kind. It was wonderful to be back, but it was a little bittersweet, too, coming back temporarily into the life we left behind.

But I couldn’t help but be struck by how different this trip could have been, had Irene taken a different course. I was overwhelmed by thankfulness.

And then I grabbed a generously-sized piece of chocolate, and steered our fair steed of a minivan into the setting sun, back toward our new life.