Bethany Beach, Delaware, July 23, 2013

★★★★ The sun hit the threshold, discouragingly, as the children were being negotiated into their sandals. It was discouraging again on the expanse from the dunes to the tide. But a few clouds intervened, and the mission carried on. The breaking waves and the wet sand the toddler was digging in were the same color as each other. One extra-tall wave surged and broke and kept running, overtaking toddler and toy truck and shovel all at once; rescue was tearful but complete. Cumulus clouds piled high, and the sun continued its intermittent assaults. Frozen custard was an exercise in crisis management. At last the sun went away, leaving only alpenglow on the peaks of the mountainous clouds. The tide, near high, ran all the way up the slope of the beach and onto the flat no-man’s land behind. It was nice time for a walk. “Nice walk nice walk,” the toddler said, experimentally. “Nice walk.” Just as the walk turned for home, at the foot-rinsing station, the older boy announced that he could see a light in the sky: the top edge of the moon, a deep orange bear claw, rising out of a low cloud. In moments it was fully out and apparently round, laying its orange beams straight across the water and up over the wetted sand. Just beside the orange, in the offing, was the tiny yellow dash of a cruise ship, someone else’s vacation. Later still the moon had gone white, its roundness slightly flattened on the western edge, and the whiteness shone on long pools of standing water, drawn high above the usual high-tide line.