From the observation deck at the Rachel Carson Wildlife Refuge in Saco, Maine on the penultimate day of July, I watched a family in the surf below. The sky was gray, but they paid it no mind. They came for the ocean, not the weather.

Summer has reached its midpoint. August waits just beyond the horizon with warm tides, long afternoons, and the quiet reminder that the season is already slipping away. Each evening, the sun will leave a little sooner. The air will cool. Before long, the beaches will belong to the gulls again.

That is how summer should be remembered. Not by the color of the sky, but by the sound of children in the surf and the pull of the tide.

On the coast of Maine, even a cloudy day at the beach is better than most anywhere else.