The weather has now changed from almost constant rain to increasing heat and humidity. That's New England. Probably in a couple of weeks it'll start snowing again.... Regardless, I realized that with the tree behind the condo down, the sun was just really brutal out on the deck.

Sue suggested we just get a stand and umbrella, so Tuesday after work I piled into her car and off we went summer deck shopping. We went down to just south of Portsmouth to the Lowes where we got a weighted stand. We backtracked to Home Depot in Newington for an umbrella, but just didn't see what we wanted, We tried the Christmas Tree Shop and then went to Ocean State Job Lots where we found a nice umbrella with a tilt top. Just what we needed!

Since we were out and around and it was still early, we decided to go over the General Sullivan Bridge and have dinner on the water at Newick's. I had a beer and a fried shrimp dinner and Sue ordered some fancy special rum drink with her coconut shrimp dinner. We were both surprised at how busy it was for a Tuesday night, but with the heat I guess folks were just looking for any excuse to get out and around.

The sun was just going down, and so after dinner Sue drove us over to Great Bay Marine to take a few pictures. We walked around on the docks and enjoyed the cooler air along the water. The sunset was pretty, and Sue got a particularly interesting shot of it glaring off of the window of one of the marina's work tug boats. The whole evening was a nice mid week excursion.