A Labor Day Sunday

We spent the Sunday of our Labor Day weekend at North Bethany with my folks, my older sister Margaret and two of her grown kids, and my brother and his lovely wife and brood. And their large, happy, friendly, rambunctious, overgrown puppy of a black lab, Titan. (He has grown a good deal since last summer.)

Matt and his two girls are geocache enthusiasts. Their plan for the early afternoon was a walk down the beach into Bethany Beach proper to find three caches. Matt's wife Lynn, having run for what I calculate as about 20 miles that morning, was going to relax for a bit. Christina and I went along for the walk; I'm always interested in a chance to look for new things to photograph.

The beach is usually fairly generous with subject matter; on a crowded beach, though, a middle-aged man with a camera generally should keep his focus on seabirds, waves and things out to sea.

We were entertained on the walk by several pods of dolphins fishing and bouncing, apparently happily, just off shore. I tried, but failed, to get a decent photograph of them.

Once in Bethany, we were successful finding two of the three geocaches. The third was somewhere under the boardwalk, an area now off-limits to help protect new dunes that have been built. One, found by the Bethany Beach Bandstand, was what one might call a "micro-geocache."

When we got back up the beach, we found our friends Andy and Lynn had brought their girls along for some beach time. We had a pleasant few hours of surfside conversation, a chance to jump into the ocean, and a clear, sunny afternoon.

After a taco dinner that couldn't be beat, we had cake and ice cream and sang happy birthday to Margaret about six times. Her birthday is still a week away, but when you have a chance to sing to your sister you take it.

It was a find Labor Day Sunday, spent just the way a holiday should be spent; with friends and family.