Tag Archives: beach

green and blue coastal views

nature, philosophy, travel, , , , , , ,

As I mentioned in my last post, we took a short trip down to California’s Central Coast – which we were amused to hear referred to as The North Coast, by those evidently oriented not to the whole state, but to Los Angeles…?

While anticipating the getaway, which was all my dear husband’s idea, I started thinking about the edges of the oceans, and how they give us a certain perspective. If you sit or stand on the shore and look seaward, you have all those millions of people behind you, and before you a vastness of water and sky to soothe the eyes and mind, and to make you think. Why don’t we all constantly gravitate to the coastlands so that we can be philosophers? It must be because we have so many worthy things we are called to DO.

Part of me wants to philosophize in this post, about a score of ideas and realities that are connected in a fascinating way. I could even write a short book for me to read about the ramblings of my mind over the last week, stimulated as it was by books and movies and history and theology that all seemed to relate to our trip.

But I will restrain myself, because I had my time sitting by the shore and now that I’m back inland I need to get on with other things. I won’t want to take the time to read that book anyway, so I’ll just make this a simple chronological report.

It was at Paso Robles on Hwy 101 that we cut over toward the coast, and the hills began to be greener, with even greener fields of newly-sprouted Something scattered here and there. The farms! Of course we have lots of farms in our county, too, but south of us they grow lots of different things and it does my heart good to see it. Thank you, Lord, for sending the rain to green-up the hills that will soon be golden — and brown — again.

Our hotel room in Cambria had a lovely view from the balcony, not just of the ocean, but also of the lush gardens on the property, with some of those favorite plants that I only see when away from home, like proteas and our beloved Pride of Madeira.

Pride of Madeira

The latter is one that we enjoyed many times on wedding anniversary trips we’ve taken, because it blooms in March. This time I told Mr. Glad that we might consider it “Our Flower.”

a protea
town of Cambria from the boardwalk


As soon as we brought in our bags we set off on the boardwalk along the long strand of Moonstone Beach, which appears to have a population of thousands of ground squirrels living under it. They popped up on one side or another every few feet to say hello and beg demurely.

Many benches sit along the boardwalk, too, providing places for philosophers to gaze out at the great beyond. Some had extra, very personalized signs and plaques, screwed into them.

Down below we scrambled on the rocks and found crabs and snails and seaweed in the cracks and tidepools.

All the salt water stands in stark contrast to the drought that is especially bad on the California coast. At our very nice restaurant in Cambria they charged us for water with dinner! Just 30 cents for a bottle, but enough to draw attention to the problem and prevent the waste of all those glasses of water that diners might ignore.

When we left Cambria we drove south and stopped near the town of Harmony to try out the Harmony Headlands trail that cuts through a swath of farmland to link up with coastal bluffs. We could smell the sagey-beachy scent that let us know the ocean was just over the hill, but we never seemed to be reaching a place from which to get even a distant view of it, so we eventually gave up and turned back. On the way back to the car this snake slithered off the edge of the trail. When I followed him into the field he froze and posed.

Neither of us had ever been to the town of Cayucos, which was our next stop. We liked this place a lot, with its casual and less touristy flavor. It used to be a shipping hub in the late 1800’s, and it’s close enough to San Luis Obispo and the college of “Cal Poly” that there were lots of students in town, and surfers to watch as we relaxed on the sand near the old pier.

Cayucos from the pier

At one end of the beach a woman drew in the sand with her foot, to draw attention to a seal pup that was lying like a lump near the shore. I did think it was a lumpy rock, until I saw her circle.

She was also standing guard against dogs who had been bothering the animal that she said was malnourished and waiting for the marine mammal rescue people to come. When a group of school children approached, the pup lifted its head long enough for me to snap a picture.

blue ceanothus, cistus, and CA poppies

Later in the week on our way home I got in more close-up views of some favorite Spring-y color combinations — at a highway rest area!

My tangible souvenirs were three, two rocks and a piece of sea glass, my material Gifts From the Sea. As to non-material and most valuable things gained….I’ll be meditating a long time on that realm of Beauty.

One cupcake on Saturday and treats all week long…

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My fortnight with lots of good company has come to an end. Of course I still have my husband who is normally all the good company I need, but it was a very wonderful thing to have our big house used for good purposes. Our guests were friends and family, and even strangers from Ohio and New York lodging here on account of a masters singing class held at my church. During this two weeks came the wave of heat.

One weekend Liam’s parents Soldier and Joy used our house for a birthday party for our little grandson. I love it when creative people decorate my house and take care of all the invitations and food for an event, and all I have to do is provide a relatively tidy environment and clean towels everywhere. In this case I even swept the floor because I knew the guest of honor would crawl all over it.

Frosting the lemon cupcakes

 
The Very Hungry Caterpillar was the theme for Liam’s party. His mother made the cutest treats and favors and lanterns relating to the story or the colors and shapes in the book. Liam didn’t notice most of it but he did eat most of a cupcake after the candle was blown out by his mother.

Their family had no sooner departed than Pippin’s crowd arrived with Pat. They had come south to enjoy more and different adventures before Pat had to return to MD. Pippin’s little ones are Scout and Ivy, so I was treated to more time with more grandchildren. So sweet.

Ivy scooted around on the floor, too, and tried to kiss the little girl in the dishwasher door.

The heat wave surprisingly extended to the North Coast beaches and we all trekked to one where there was no fog or wind. Barely any sand got into our sourdough bread and cheese and blueberries, and only Scout stood on his head in the hole that the cousins dug.

God gave us a rainbow in a cloud. It was even more brilliant than this but faded somewhat while I rummaged around for my camera.

 

I took the photo below for Jo in Tasmania where they call New Zealand Spinach warrigal greens. Its botanical name is Tetragonia tetragonioides. It seems to have naturalized here on the coast and this is the second time I’ve seen it on beaches.

 

 

Here’s the same plant that keeps volunteering in my garden, amongst the tomatoes and snapdragons:

On the bluffs above the beach, as we were parting with Pat, I got a parting gift in this pale yellow/white paintbrush display in the middle of a coastal flower show. These all were just a few of the pleasures of the early summer – I will tell of more soon.

Not Lazy Summer Days

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To be precise, summer only began yesterday, so I shouldn’t be complaining about the lack of hours sitting on a patio with tea, or in the shade reading a book. I will likely yet have time before we get to the fall equinox for solitary early-morning weeding sessions in the garden while towhees splash in the birdbath nearby. But lately I’ve been doing so many fun and good things, I’ve been getting a bit depleted.

A week ago today, I was baking pies. It was a satisfyingly creative job, even if I did have a huge mess afterward.

Initially I wanted to bake an apple pie for the father of my children, for Father’s Day. And at church the ladies were bringing in pies for the agape meal, also in honor of the day. I made three for that contribution, using up some flaked coconut and other goodies in my pantry.

This one above left was named Million Dollar Pie where I found the recipe online, but as I improved it by cutting the sugar in half, I’ll make that Two Million Dollars. It must have tasted like a candy bar, what with the coconut, chocolate chips and walnuts it featured, but none was left over for me to try.

The recipe I found for Coconut Pineapple Pie made two pies from a 14-oz. bag of flaked coconut and a large can of crushed pineapple, with some eggs and butter, etc. in the mix. I did get a taste of that concoction, and I wonder if it might have had more zing if I’d used a name brand of pineapple. Even with its sugar cut in half it was a little too blandly sweet for me, but people liked it.

My newest favorite kitchen gadget got used that day: silicone pie crust shields. In the past I used aluminum foil to keep my crusts from getting too brown, but foil is not nearly as handy.

The day after Father’s Day grandson “Pat” flew to California all by his lonesome from D.C.’s Ronald Reagan Airport, mostly to spend a while with Pippin’s family, but we grandparents had the happy task of meeting him at the Oakland airport. Oakland is next door to Berkeley, where year by year I as a child visited my own grandparents, so we stopped in that old neighborhood of Indian Rock and Indian Rock Park in the Berkeley Hills.

Indian Rock

My sisters and I used to play here, just down the block from my grandma’s house, and even my father had his picture taken on the Rock when he was a small boy. It’s such a lovely thing that the houses were built all around this cluster of craggy boulders that seem more likely to be found in the Sierra Nevada. Pat climbed “cross country” on them, while we older people used the flights of steps long ago cut in the rock.

My father in 1927

From the top you can see far and wide, both the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, and at the bottom, where the hill slopes into the town of Albany, it’s possible to walk down to Solano Avenue by way of stairs passing between houses. It takes only a few minutes to go this way, descending to shops and in my grandma’s time, her beauty parlor and the ice cream parlor that she let us visit by ourselves. Those were the days when children were safe.

After a couple of days having Pat all to ourselves, I drove him north to have adventures with the Professor and fun little cousins.; we listened to most of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader on the way up, with me interrupting frequently to say, “Would you look at all those sunflowers!” (There were a couple of thousand acres, I think, visible from I-5.) and “Those are tomatoes in that field, and this is alfalfa….” Sadly, we couldn’t get one of those faraway views of Mt. Shasta because of clouds.

I had a few sweet hours with Scout and Ivy before I wore myself out driving back the very next day. I needed to come home and get ready for multiple house guests, and for events such as the much anticipated Feast of Pentecost.

Friday morning when I was back watering the garden I discovered that more of my unusually colored California poppies had bloomed, like this one.

A brief look-around at my flowers didn’t seem to be enough R&R, though, so I asked Mr. Glad to take me to the coast where I could “just sit and stare at the ocean.” He was happy to comply.


The weather wasn’t as summery and calm as the predictors had led us to expect, but the fog hung around only thinly so that we mostly noticed the sunshine. I tied a bandana around my head so that the wind wouldn’t make a total tangle of my hair, and we sat in the lee of a sand dune where I could rake my fingers through the warm sand for an hour.

I don’t know how long I may have to wait to experience even a short string of rejuvenating days, but for now I think my half of a lazy afternoon will do nicely.

Bodega and Stories of Horror

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This week we tripped over to the coast with Mr. and Mrs. C. A walk along the shore north of the town of Bodega Bay was first on the leisurely agenda. Schoolhouse Beach was closed, so we drove a little farther north to Portuguese Beach. It’s steep where the waves break on the sand, and signs warn you not to turn your back to the surf or to go on the down side of the slope, where an undertow can get you in its grip.

The View Landward

We strolled the length of the beach and back, admiring the view landward and seaward, and then sat on a log. Mr. and Mrs. C didn’t have their frisky Yellow Lab with them, but we’ve seen how she loves to romp in the water at Lake Tahoe or at nearby Salmon Creek Lagoon.

As we were climbing back up the cliff to the car, we met a couple coming down with four dogs, no matter that pets are not allowed on that beach. A tall great dane, two medium dogs with long hair, a tiny dog, and their owner carrying colorful beach ball.

Drowning at Portuguese Beach in 2011

We stopped at the top for a while and watched the Dane canter around joyfully. The mid-sized dogs pushed the beach ball into the waves and along the ocean’s edge — all right at that steep part that is so dangerous. Mrs. C. commented about how many people go into the ocean to rescue their dogs; the people often drown, but if they only had known that dogs almost always manage to get back on their own….

When I was researching for this post I discovered a news story and photo depicting a case of that very thing: a dog owner having drowned when she went after her dog and got caught in the surf. That time the dog did drown also, and it was at just this time of year. These accidents, though not always involving dogs, happen so often on the Northern California coast that the multiplied effect has turned them into horror stories for me.


“Birds” children running downhill from schoolhouse.

A bit inland from Bodega Bay, we came to the town of Bodega. Confusing, isn’t it? Both are famous for the Alfred Hitchcock movie “The Birds” being filmed here in the early 1960’s.

I saw it in my teens, and can still recall sitting on the living room floor, self-consciously and silently terrified. Ever since then, when I see crows looking down from telephone wires, I know from the experience of that movie that they have a sinister intent.

The schoolhouse today, a private residence.

Hitchcock mixed up scenes from the two towns for the film, and we checked out two of the landmarks that remain in Bodega: the schoolhouse and the church, which stand very close to one another on a hill. Within the last year we Glads and the C. couple watched “The Birds” together. It wasn’t as scary as I remembered, but I still don’t like it. I do like the buildings in Bodega.

On our way back from the beach we first stopped at a historic watering hole in the town; the Casino’s bar was built a hundred years ago by the bartender’s great-uncle. His grandmother still manages the place, opening the doors and closing up every day even in her 80’s.

The dining room (the sign said “Dinning Room”) was most appealing to me. It was fresh and clean and empty that afternoon, tables, chairs and floor of bare weathered wood as old as the bar. A dozen or more deer and elk heads decorated the walls around. I drank an Ace Peary Hard Cider, brewed locally.

After our refreshment we walked along a muddy little track through the grass along the bank above the road, to see the church and the school.

The church is St. Teresa of Avila. Services have been held there weekly since its dedication in 1861. From the church you can look down on the little artsy town of Bodega, as in the photo below.

When we had set out from our house that morning, I decided not to bother with a camera. Then of course I regretted it many times! I was lucky to find all of these pictures on the Web.

I’m happy to say there was nothing horrific about our meandering day. That’s a good thing about enjoying the present moment: one doesn’t have to be subject to artists’ imaginations, to old news articles, or to one’s own memories of bad things. “Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof,” and as there wasn’t any of that sort of thing on our outing, it provided sufficient R&R for my weary soul. Thanks be to God!

Town of Bodega