S'mores and more

Last weekend we had company and they expressed a desire to have a fire at the beach one night. The temperature had dropped significantly in the prior week and we were worried about everyone freezing once the sun went down, but we loaded the truck after dinner and headed south down Egypt Lane.

We were shocked to see the parking lot filled at Wiborg's Beach, which is our usual spot. Not only was every spot filled at 7pm, but there were cars parked further down the street in the clearly marked "no parking" zones. Apparently there was a huge party going on and from what we could see there were cases of beer going down to the festivities as well as pallets of wood for a fire, both illegal of course, and not making it look like a nice quiet night on the sand, so we moved on to Egypt Beach and unloaded there.

It was dark so much ealier and really chilly, although we had all dressed for the weather. We also had blankets chairs so we didn't have to sit on the cool sand. The kids played with a football in the dusk while we worked on getting a good fire going in the container we'd brought along. Once it was too dark for seeing the ball, the kids gathered around the fire with us and the ingredients for s'mores came out. We had cut and trimmed some good branches for toasting the marshmallows and before long there were gooey hands all around.

We didn't stay too late - the kids needed to get to bed at a decent hour. Now that school's in session parents don't want to throw off their sleep schedules too much, even on weekends. And it was fine with me - I was starting to feel the cold. So we put out the fire and gathered our belongings, carried the container and debris up the beach and loaded everything back into the truck.

Our guests seemed to enjoy the evening and I was glad to have had yet another reason to spend a night at the beach. It's a long, cold winter, and the memory of our final night of s'mores at the beach will most certainly help to warm us up come February.