I have a little “streak” going with these blog posts. I’ve posted once a week every week so far this year. Quite an accomplishment, something I wasn’t sure that I would be able to maintain. That in itself is cause for a little celebration. But, I tell you, I was very close to letting the streak end this week. It’s been busy! My daughter is home from college for a few days. I drove to Reno to pick her up at the airport, and two days later we left home for a camping trip at Mackerricher State Park, just north of Fort Bragg, California. It is beautiful. It is ocean and redwoods and a few of my favorite spots on the planet. Every time we visit, we go to the beautifully maintained Pt. Cabrillo Lighthouse, and Mendocino, and Mendocino’s wonderful locally owned bookstore, the Gallery Bookshop, and the Mackerricher boardwalk, which winds along the shoreline and has benches where you can sit for as long as you want and watch the seals huddled on rocks a little ways from the beach. Have you been here? If you haven’t, it is worth a visit, but just plan ahead and make your summer reservations a few months in advance.
It’s always good to sit in front of a campfire.
Today, my daughter and I went for a long run on the road that runs from MacKerricher to Glass Beach. After that, we picked up firewood from a local wood seller ($5.00 a bundle, half the price of wood in the campground), got handmade ice cream from Cowlicks ice cream parlor, looked at the cars at the Father’s Day weekend car sale, and had a picnic of Jenny’s Giant Burger burgers on the beach. Right now, we are at Starbucks, where they have Wi-Fi that lets me share this with you and also allows her to work on her summer school Spanish class.
Luckily for us, our coastal camping trip came right as temperatures in our little mountain town rose to near record levels, predicted to hit more than 100 degrees a few days in a row, which is basically unheard of and crazily uncomfortable.
Honestly, almost nobody has air conditioning where we live; you used to only need it a few days out of the year, because most of the time, you survive a few hours of afternoon heat, and then open the windows in the evening and the cool breeze blows away the sun. Except that doesn’t work so well when it doesn’t move out of the 70s at night, which it hasn’t these days.
Also, luckily for us, we have neighbors who are checking on my garden daily and opening and closing the windows at appropriate times, making sure that Milo the fat cat is OK while we are gone.
It has been a great gift to be here these last days.
I know that every week can’t include lighthouses, boardwalks, and beach picnics. This week did, though. Also, sweatshirts, warm sleeping bags, feeling chilly in the morning, hot chocolate and tea. Tomorrow, we head home again. Two days later, my daughter flies back to Los Angeles and begins her summer away from us, which includes not only an on-line course but also volunteer work in a lab and a new part-time job at a fancy donut shop.
Right now, though This moment? We are together at Starbucks, where we are able to sit inside without our masks for the first time in months because we are all fully vaccinated. A man sits with his little dog on the lawn in front of the store, eating chicken tenders from the Safeway next door. He politely asked if he could plug in his cell phone at the outlet that is near our table. The dog sleeps on the green grass, then wakes up and stretches. I have sand on my neck from our earlier picnic. I think we all got a little sunburned, even though we brought the sunscreen. The sun will go down soon, and we plan to be at the beach where we can watch it again. It’s what we do every night, and it will be late tonight, the day before the longest day of the year. The summer solstice is tomorrow.
This is my ordinary today. And it is more than enough.
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