A FOGGY DAY AT THE BEACH IS BETTER THAN NO DAY AT THE BEACH

I make it to the beach this summer! It is foggy, damp, and dreary, but I make it.

I understand that this blog complains an awful lot about the weather. This is, after all, New England, which means that the weather is often center stage for complaining. That being said, no decent New Englander worth one's salt would ever live permanently anywhere else because the weather is what makes us so damn tough. It can be ninety degrees out one day, and we could endure a blizzard the next -- and yet, we don't all die of pneumonia. It's almost a fluke.

But, let's be reasonable. This summer's weather has sucked. SUCKED. And done so big time.

So far I think we  may have had four days, possibly five, since June 21st that it has not rained. Lately it has been pouring. You know, that pounding, drenching, unforgiving crap that never seems to stop. The radar has been crazy. There can be completely clear skies. then, without any warning at all, a huge green and orange and red splotch appears on the map, the skies darken like midnight, and -- BAM! -- umbrellas everywhere.

I am on my way to Maine, and I am early for arrival. I decide, since the tide is receding, that I should walk to coast along The Wall, which is a part of the limited New Hampshire coastline that loses almost the entire beach during high tide but leaves a mile and a half of the softest sand known to man during low tide. The problem is that the entire coastline for miles and miles and miles is socked in with thick fog. I park my car anyway, and prepare for my walk.

I am not wearing my bathing suit today (shorts and a tank top), but I would gladly wade into the water, which is much warmer than I am expecting for this time of year and these weather conditions. I walk almost three miles before heading back to the car. When I do get back to the car, I am soaked, anyway. The fog is so incredibly hideous that the water condenses on my skin, and I am so slippery that I might as well have jumped into the surf. My hair, once straight, is curling like Shirley Temple and dripping like I've just showered. 

By the time I arrive at my destination, I have dried out considerably but still smell of salt. I have to pull my hair back because its sheer volume interferes with my driving. But, I have been to the beach. It didn't rain (although it pours like crazy on my ride home from Maine) and I only get one greenhead fly bite that happens when I head to the bath house to use the facilities -- not a bug on the actual beach. 

If it ever, EVER stops raining, I would love to go back to the beach before school starts again. Knowing my luck, the weather will change to gorgeous and perfect daily as soon as Labor Day passes.