Sandcastles

There are firsts for everything: first steps, first words, first birthdays, first loves...the list is endless. However, this weekend, young Mabel surprised both Lindsay and I with a first of her own--She pooped sand...yes, beach sand. Let me set the scene for you:

We decided to spend Saturday afternoon at Hill's Beach on the Maine coast. This was to be Mabel's first encounter with the salty ocean, waves, and the beach. Perhaps it was the similarities of how it felt underfoot, or the ease at which she could press her nose into it, but Mabel seemed to think that the beach was snow, her favorite medium for fun. Soooo she commenced to dig, nose poke, flip up into the air, and eat the sand. Why she didn't realize after the first mouthful that this thing she was eating was not snow is beyond human rationale. She just kept shoveling it up and swallowing it down with alarming ferocity.

Then she discovered the foam from the crashing waves. She really didn't understand what that was, so she barked, and bit, and drank the salty sea water until she realized that it made her gag.

Late that evening, Mabel awakened with great urgency and requested to go outside...pronto. Once outside, Mabel made fast work of finding a choice spot to make a doggie deposit. To our surprise this deposit was pure sand. Miniature sandcastles, folks. You know, like the kind children make when a little water is added to the sand? I think we used to call them drizzle castles, or something like that. That was not the last of sandy poops. Over the course of 3 hours, Mabel made several visits to the nearest patch of grass only to find herself leaving more evidence of her embarrassing misjudgment from earlier in the day. A lesson learned.

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All poops aside, the rest of the weekend was stellar. Lindsay and I climbed a few days in North Conway, NH at Cathedral and Whitehorse Ledge. Surprisingly, we saw very few people over the course of 2 days at the crag despite the fall-like temps and sunny skies. On our last day we spotted a pretty righteous bumper sticker on a PA climber's car that gave us the feeling these guys were not messin' around. We agreed that people who have bumper stickers like this wear doo-rags and hammer pants.

Oh, we also received $80 in cash for going on a "quick" tour of a local hotel, and we ended up investing in something that we'll hopefully reap benefits from sooner than later.

30 days and counting...