A morning at the beach

So, once a week, sometimes more, we take our dogs to the beach. Well, we let them play in the sea once a week. We tend to walk them on the beach more often because there aren't any bugs out there. I get mobbed by horseflies every time I walk the dogs in our neighborhood. For the uninitiated, a horsefly looks like a cross between a fly and a moth...and they bite. Painfully, too.

So anywho, when you take the dogs to the beach, and don't let them play in the sea, this is what you get:

We went out to the beach today, and it was like a Three Stooges act...and Sarah will likely say I played all three stooges. Millie, the dog pictured, kept trying to jump into the front seat while driving to the beach. Once there, the beach was packed. Why we didn't think about people being at the beach on July 4th, I don't know.

As we started to unload the dogs, we realized we had no dog leashes. We usually use floating ropes so the dogs are still "on a leash" but can still swim, but I had unpacked them from the car the day before...and didn't tell Sarah about it. So we had to load back and head home to get the ropes. Millie was not happy about this turn of events.

When we finally got back to the beach, our original spot had been taken, but another spot was just ahead. We unloaded and made our way across the seawall to the sea. It was disgusting. Have a look:

Those things you see are left over fireworks and left over bits of someone's picnic. You can't see it well in these photos, but one of those clumps on the beach is actually a pufferfish that didn't survive the fireworks.

To be fair the beach is usually very, very clean. The water isn't, but the beach is usually awesome. But the county supervisors have decided that the only place legal to shoot fireworks this year is into the sea from the beaches. And they did, and continued to do so at noon when we were there. Why would anyone shoot fireworks at mid-day is beyond me.