Encinitas, California

Encinitas starts its day the way it means to continue: with a surf check. Coffee in hand, eyes on the water, the whole town reading the same report off the same horizon before the day asks anything of anyone.

This is surf camp country — the dawn patrol, the sandy car seats, the summer that turned into a way of life. The bluffs run along the coast, the taco stands keep their own hours, and everybody knows the breaks the way other towns know back roads.

Then the sun drops into the Pacific and the bluffs fill up with people who planned their whole day around being right there. Some summers never really end. In Encinitas, that's not a saying. It's the local arrangement.

Your turn

The comments are open — post your Encinitas below:

• Your break — and the best wave you ever caught on it
• Your dawn patrol story, from any summer
• Your sunset spot on the bluffs

Locals, homesick locals, and anyone who visited once and never quite got over it — all of you. The best stories will find their way into the future stories we tell here.

The pieces we made for Encinitas live in the Encinitas collection — souvenirs of the story, not the other way around.