A Farewell to Summer from Galveston Beach

Shark eye, Neverita duplicata

Cancellate Cantharus, Solenosteira cancellaria

Lettered Olive, Oliva sayana

Atlantic Ghost Crab, Ocypode quadrata

The good (and bad) things about having a kid in school is that there are now random holidays in the middle of the month that adults don’t typically get—teacher work days for one. Forest had one of these on Monday and rather than splitting the day and each of us working from home part of it, we took the day off and went to the beach. We had several things going for us: late September, it being a Monday, and not a normal holiday. I was hoping it wouldn’t be very crowded and we got our wish! Typically if we went during the middle of summer on a weekend, the beach pocket parks would be jammed with cars by noon. This time a few other folks joined us on the beach but at times we were the only ones for a while. It was fantastic!

Summer wasn’t going to let go of its hold quite so easily and it was warm and delightful weather for the beach. Between walks down the beach, I sat in the splash zone with Forest while he became a dolphin and rode the little waves in and created games for himself to play. Honestly, it was just perfect. Despite Hurricane Nicholas having impacted the area the week before, there wasn’t much washed up on the beach than is normal. Some oddball plants like a cactus and an acorn, but typical shells and debris, and of course plastic bits. A wrack line at the dunes was really the only big evidence that something had happened recently. That and some wind damage to a couple of hotels on the Seawall.

Typically we get out to the beach fairly early during our summer weekend escapes but because it was Monday and driving through Houston on I-45 during rush hour sounded miserable, we delayed leaving until mid-morning. Which mean we stayed on the beach until a little after 5pm. Staying that late made me wish I’d had a hotel to return to so I could have sat and watched the sun set. But, maybe another time…