Crane Beach

The pictures are all out of order, so I'll just tell the story like a puzzle and trust everybody to make sense of it.

Beautiful sands, beautiful day.

Still have not splurged on a maternity bathing suit. Week 29 belly, and it felt heavenly to let my cumbersome body waft on top of the waves. I had serious thoughts along the lines of, "why don't I just have the baby in the ocean?" The water was absolutely relaxing, gorgeous, and...

Crowded. So crowded, in fact, that we had to hike three miles in because that's as far away as the police squad would let us do drop-offs. Parking was even farther away than that, so our good friend Roger (who drove us there) parked the car and then caught up to us.

No matter. The "hiking" made the water feel that much more refreshing, and I'd been needing to exercise that day anyway.

This tide pool was as warm as a bathtub.

The main reason for crowds was the sand sculpture contest taking place that afternoon. This particular sculpture was "interactive," in that it had a walk-through maze/path of sorts so people could get really close to the sculptures.

I loved the little drippy trees on this castle. And the wooden texture of the docking posts was incredibly realistic.

The only picture of the day featuring Jerry. I really need to start taking the camera for a few minutes so we have more photos of him, instead of all me and the baby. =)

We passed these amazing meadows/grasslands (?) on our trek to the beach. I think the black boxes are for nesting birds.

Trying out my hitchhiker's thumb with friend Neica while her husband Roger drove a bit farther down the road to park the car. Again, I really didn't much mind the walk. The day was beautiful, and my body felt grateful to stretch and get a workout. The main downfall of the walking was clouds of mosquitos that accompanied us. I used my self-hypnosis to make the bites stop itching.

Overall a really fun outing! This beach is about a half hour north of Boston, so we would probably only go if we had a whole day to spend there, but we highly recommend it for anybody who is in the area (though probably best to go when the sand sculpture crowds would be gone).