 |
| From Beach Day |
Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. First off, we stopped in Woodside for some coffee and pastries, because that's how Mom and Dad roll. We found a parking spot in the Buck's parking lot right alongside this wickedly cool Studebaker. Note the blue skies, shorts and hot weather gear!
So the first thing we did in the beach parking lot, ironically enough, was put on lots more clothes so we wouldn't get coldy-woldy. Then you and Mom took off to see the big waves.
It wasn't long before you'd found an enormous hole to play in.
And then it was on to the main event. Since we go to this beach a lot, visitors here are probably familiar with the 'creek' that runs through the middle of the beach down to the water. This is where you do most of your swimming, since we don't have to worry about undertow, Great White Sharks, and water that borders on freezing. Well today it was more like a lake, the water was still and didn't make it all the way to the ocean.
The bridge in the background of the next picture is famous, and I don't know how many pictures I have of it, but I don't think I have a single one with fog this thick. Or with such a cutie in the frame. Here we are playing 'Fill The Bucket and Dump The Bucket', a game for which you could turn professional if you wanted.
Another shot of the bridge, the fog, and the cliffs on the other side of the beach. You were pretty psyched to be in the water again, that's for sure.
Eventually you found a rock in the lake. So it was time for a new game, 'Throw The Rock and Chase The Rock'. You are pretty good at this one too. I had just thrown the rock (it just hit the water to your left), and you are chasing the rock...
Now, your turn to throw. Really, you are usually pretty good at throwing things. This time, though, you were a little over-excited and things didn't go exactly as you planned, or maybe you just planned for the rock to go straight up and straight down so you wouldn't have to go far to chase it...
Here your Mom and I take a brief break from being helicopter parents (always hovering over you) to grab a glamor shot of ourselves.
Boy did you have fun in the water and in the sand! After chasing the rock for a while, for whatever reason you decided the game was to run up onto the beach, find dry sand, roll around in it, and bring a handful back into the lake to throw into the water. And repeat. And again, and again, and again...
No wonder you are so worn out! Here you are with a very handsome man, about to deploy your payload of dry sand into the lake.
After a while of that action, it was time to go check out the big waves at the Ocean again. I asked if you saw any sharks, and you used the usual reply "I don't see any!"... Earlier I'd asked if you thought there would be sharks in the lake, and you broke tradition and simply stated "I hope so!!"
There are these amazing sandstone bluffs and cliffs around the beach, and today you decided to try your hand at climbing them. As usual, you are a good little monkey when it comes to climbing and made it all the way to the top, at least as close to the top as was possible to get!
Noticed something on the way down, though. You aren't exactly delicate when it comes to going down the hill. That is to say, you pretty much point yourself down the fall line and let gravity run its course. If Mom wouldn't have been holding on for dear life, you would have found the very fast way down the hill!
Here is Sandy Maya, making her way back up the sandstone bluff. You are quite an adventurer, but luckily when you aren't coming straight down a hill, you are pretty careful.
Still, it is nice to have a hand to hold sometimes, just in case!
At this point, we were all hungry and you were freezing cold. Time to wrap up and have a snack! This was a record, not only in terms of you holding still, but actually sitting on my lap. By the time we finished up I was fairly convinced you actually liked to snuggle. The previous record of you hanging out on my lap was about 12 seconds. You demolished it, and hung with me for long enough to eat our apples, cheese, an energy bar, and even some graham bunnies. Mmmmmm....
Finally, it was time to head for home. We'd been in the lake, the ocean, on the beach, up and down the beach, on the bluffs, wow! So we packed it up and headed in, even though we didn't throw the frisbee or fly your kite.
You still showed some energy, though, insisting on playing hide and seek while Mom went to the bathroom. She told us to stay close, though, so the choices of hiding places was a little sparse. You are good at making due with what you've got.
From the parking lot, you can really see how even though the beach was completely fogged in, cloudy, and cold we wouldn't have far to go to get back into the sunshine... In fact, about 200 yards. When they talk about microclimates in California, they are really not joking at all.
Anyway, after all of that I shouldn't be surprised when things got very quiet in the back seat on the way home...
I like that beach. It is called San Gregorio State Beach, and it is so convenient to us, kind of... Though it is only about 12 miles as the crow flies from our house, we've got to go up and down the mountains to get there, which makes for an awesome drive... When you aren't stuck behind minivans and Prius hybrids and such. Anyway, here is a link to the California Coastal Records project, which basically documents the entire coast of California in high-resolution aerial photography. From here you can totally see the creek, the bridge, the cliffs, and a piece of the beach which runs for about two miles. Nice.
Anyway, just about time to wake you up and go play in the back yard for a little while. Thanks for another wonderful afternoon, it is so fun to take you to the beach!
No comments:
Post a Comment