Bethany Beach, Delaware, July 19, 2016

★★★ To avoid the morning sun on the beach, the plan was to have the boys do some biking; the share of the bike ride without training wheels turned out to be a series of strenuous and sweaty laps around the sun-baked parking lot. The afternoon temperature on the beach, however, was as mild as the plan had hoped. The tide was out and the swells were all gentle. Something brown and white and large thrashed to the surface in the breakers; someone standing nearer by said it had been a skate. Elsewhere someone else came up with a horseshoe crab in hand, and off in the middle distance dolphins were flashing when they surfaced. The sun went behind a cloud while the four-year-old was being dipped in the ocean and came out again when he was back up the shore coating himself with sand. A trio of children, identically blond and incrementally different in size, stood poised with boogie boards waiting for waves worth attacking, or waves worth letting themselves be attacked by. When a suitable one approached, they would sprint down the sand singly or in twos, to get tossed up in the air and down into the water. More clouds came on, attenuating and seemingly shortening the daylight, but the light recovered after dinner, and out the windows of the comics shop a full and direct peachy glow washed over the strolling people.