Nickerson State Park was only a short distance from the Cape Cod National Seashore, so we piled into the van one day and drove further out the cape and have an 'ocean' day.  We did not get their until pretty late one afternoon, and the wind was up by the time we got settled on the sand.  A toe dip into the ocean revealed that the temperature was in the mid 50s -- as cold as it ever gets in Santa Barbara.

Undeterred, we all went for a 'swim' anyway, as long as you define a swim as a quick running dive into the surf followed by a shriek and an immediate retreat.

Below, Joya demonstrates her form.

We also did a fair amount of just hanging out and reading while at Nickerson.  Below, Joya is clearly carefully preparing for her pending rigorous academic schedule for the coming school year.

The previous night Jody had found a tick on her neck, and we had saved it in some alcohol for later study.  The later studying took the form of popping the tick onto a slide and taking a look at the little devil under the microscope we had with us.  Jordan took the lead on this project.

And Joya came up with the idea of shooting a picture right through the microscope's lens, to obtain the image below.

Nickerson State Park contains a half dozen or so "Kettle Ponds", so named because of the deep round holes dug by advancing glaciers some thousands of years ago.  The glaciers dug so deeply that the holes extend into the water table.  When the glaciers retreated, the holes remained and are kept full with rain and groundwater.  Given the chilly state of the ocean, these sounded like a better bet than the Atlantic.  So we went.

And boy were we happy.  The water was fresh, very clear and about 80 degrees.  The day was very hot -- in the  low 90s -- so we took our chairs down with us, and just plopped them in the water, which the girls demonstrate below.

They found an old log on the shore and dragged it into the pond, in an attempt to create a usable boat.  That effort failed, but they got a fun surprise from it: frogs.  They must have been holed up inside the log, and begun swimming when the log became submerged.  There were a dozen or more of all sizes swimming away from the girls towards shore.  As a kindness to the frogs, and for the sheer fun of it, we rounded all of them up, dragged the log back to its original location, and restored the frogs to their daytime hiding spot.

Back at camp, a domestic scene that same day.  Those are Jordan's legs waving around at the left -- she was lolling in the hammock at the time.  I liked the colors and composition of this, and it pretty well represents how we often looked while at camp.

July 26 - Wompatuk and Hingham