Delaware is glorious. The state is small and in many parts pretty bland, but those parts don’t happen to be the beach, which is where we lived out our stay. We are especially fortunate to have such a bighearted friend, Kathleen, who handed us the keys to her vacant Bethany Beach house for an unlimited stay. After some initial graceless maneuvering of Sunny into steeply-angled parking, we settled in and chilled out.

The beach house is no more than 200 feet from the Atlantic Ocean’s modestly pounding surf with nothing but sand and shells between. There was always a handful of surf fishermen along the beach, but since it’s technically off-season, beachgoers were scarcer than hen’s teeth—a refreshing cry from the throngs that normally pack the Mid-Atlantic beaches. Our time spent here was all about relaxing. Most days had a good chunk occupied by some combination of walking, reading and sunning. Holly liked combing through the plentiful little “shell graveyards” that seem to collect in depressions in the sand. And the cats were happy here too. I can’t tell you how much Storm loved the beach. I got a kick out of walking him down the beach and causing a stir among the few tourists that were around, with the whole cat-on-a-leash-on-the-beach thing. Kaw-Liga was keen on the sand too, but preferred the safe haven between the house and the sand fence—there were a lot fewer scary things there.

As much as I’d like to say that we’re still in Delaware at the beach house, we’re not. We have dates with thirty four states yet and about nine months to see them. So, in some respects reluctantly, we left the wonderful seashore.