I Dune Not Know

My daughter wanted to see the ocean today, and she specifically requested the beach we visited last year with friends of hers. Now that school has started for most kids and there is a fall chill in the air, we had the beach pretty much to ourselves. (Here's the same viewpoint today for comparison.)

While at first my daughter didn't understand why I didn't pack our swimsuits (the air was 64F/18C and the water was 61F/16C), she soon forgot all about swimming and spent an hour running and jumping from rock to rock. I also let her scamper up the dunes before I saw a sign saying "Please Stay Off. The dunes are fragile." In payback for me being such a killjoy, I was asked about 80 times why we had to stay off the dunes...what is fragile...why are they fragile...what is erosion...why does it hurt the environment...why do the plants need to live in the sand...why did people throw garbage on the dunes...what do you mean, 'you don't know'...why not?

The 'why' stage is just killing me.



Alternate.