I've been wondering for a while if the beach we visit in the summers, Bryan beach, survived hurricane Ike. I was never able to find anything specific about that particular stretch of beach. My curiosity got the better of me this weekend, so I loaded the girls in the car to drive down there, risking the possibility that there woudl not be a beach to go to.
As it turns out, the beach is as good, if not better, than it was this summer. The beach appeared quite a bit larger than it was before. The only noticeable effects 2 months after the hurricane was that the line of sand dunes behind the beach are now gone. I don't know what impact that will have on the beach long-term, but I suspect there'll be an effort to reestablish the dunes before the next storm hits.
So we had a fun hour at the beach on Sunday. It was breezy and sunny - perfect for playing in the sand. The water wasn't even that cold; it was too cold to swim but not too cold to wade. This was the first time at this beach we encountered lots of little clams (the absolute largest were the size of a dime) just under the surface of the sand. We couldn't help but dig a few up with every scoop of sand. They usually would rest for a minute, then tilt up and burrow back under the sand. We had quite a bit of fun with them.