It was hot and sunny in Universe City - my chocolate melted in the trunk of my car by 11 am - and warm and sunny at the campsite at the coast, but on the beach it was cold and cloudy.
I made the classic going-to-the-coast mistake of wearing shorts. (There is virtually never a time when shorts work for the coast in State of Happiness. Ditto a swimsuit.)
Waiting on a dock for crabs to crawl into the pots we had dropped, I shivered. SHO gave me his rain pants and a pair of socks, which I put on with my sandals. I still shivered.
"They sell a lot of sweatshirts out here to people like us," I said, as the six of us who had taken refuge in the famous chowder restaurant waited in line for a table, a line that wended its way through trinkets and sweatshirts.
"Also cheap plastic crap to kids," someone commented.
There were no crabs to be caught. The rest of the crowd gave up while we drank warm beverages inside.
We went back to camp and grilled clams on the fire after extensive googling about which clams are currently safe to eat. We piled corn on the coals, still in the husk but with the silk removed. We roasted marshmallows.
I fell asleep to the sound of the sea.
The next day was clear and sunny, with a bank of fog hovering just over there, always just out of reach. Most people left, but three of us walked away down the beach to the rocks at the end and over them into a little cove. The wind blew so hard that I wore a sweatshirt and a rain jacket tied up around my face, together with sunglasses, and still I had sand in my hair when I got home.
The tide was coming in, and we had to go back (I had to time my climb over the rocks for when the waves went out), but we had long enough to stand in the force of the wind and watch the waves roll in, just to take it in.
Driving back to Gone West, I left my windows open most of the way, feeling the heat grow and grow.
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