Flight of 5

There’s a lesson to be learned from our stay at Mission Bay, I know there is.  I’ve had to tweak this post repeatedly, though, as I kept going in unwanted directions.  It was a weird stay.

First of all, how we ended up there.  Weekends are tricky and require reservations – this we’ve now known for a while.  I had booked the Coronado Beach Cottages on Naval Air Station North Island months ahead of time for next week, and considered this a major coup.  I hadn’t, however, been able to find state parks or military sites remotely in the area for the weekend prior.  The private campgrounds seem to be always the last to get reserved, and I was able to find a couple on Mission Bay.  My impression of Mission Bay before staying there was that it’s kind of a water sports and BBQing-on-the-beach mecca.  Vacationing families from out of town, wake boarders, bouncing beach balls, etc.  Sea World is there, there are lots of little beaches and passages, and the water is protected and calm.  Here’s how it looks from the air.

Campland was the most expensive of the RV campgrounds there, so I opted for the splurge, reasoning that since I would be gone part of the time on my work trip, why not ensure Tacco and the kids were in the best place possible?

When we pulled up to the gate and checked in, the woman behind the counter was over-the-top enthusiastic, describing all the amenities, assuring us that after this visit we’d become regulars, and topping it off with “welcome to paradise!”  Paradise!  Wow!

So in we drive, eyes wide.

It wasn’t paradise, at least at first blush.

Now I’m not going to claim it was the opposite, it certainly wasn’t.  Our (quite pricey) spot, however, was a little section of parking lot with a small patch of dirt next to it and bordered by a chain link fence.  OK, not a problem, we thought, it must be all about the amenities.  Or the clientele.  And at least there was no one parked next to us.

It wasn’t the amenities. It wasn’t the clientele.

We walked down to the ersatz beachfront – it was an actual beach, but the sand had clearly been trucked in and dumped on top of the muddy shore to make it so — past a smattering of RVs that had seen better days and appeared to have been parked for quite some time.  It captured neither the kids’ nor my imagination, so after a couple minutes we walked right back.

Essentially it was this, and I’ll skip to the summary rather than dragging out the play-by-play – my impression is that this is an RV park built around a bar.  The bar was mostly outdoors and held the position of honor in the center of the park, and seemed to get most of the park’s activity.  Unfortunately, depending on how you look at it I suppose, the activity was lazy day drinking.  And night drinking.  Lots of beer and cocktails.  All while the few kids ran around on the grass field between the bar and the water or rode their bikes around while wearing rubber-mohawk-spiked helmets.  There was a park-wide PA system that would occasionally exhort us all to get out there for happy hour with Brandi, or Crystal, or whichever bartendress had the serve-booze-to-the-RVers watch.

Is that an overly negative picture I’ve painted?  Have we become uptight?  I wouldn’t have thought so, but my description makes me wonder.  People were undoubtedly enjoying themselves.  And I don’t intend to imply that everyone there was loud and drunk – I certainly wouldn’t call it raucous.  Yet when I joined Tacco and the kids during my layover after taking the red-eye back to Boston and then operating the flight back to San Diego, she was a bit bleary-eyed from the loud country music and ‘80s hair bands that had dueled late into the night and kept her awake.  She had to explain to the kids that it wasn’t cool to keep your neighbors up with your music (unless you’re in college, where it’s encouraged).

I guess it just wasn’t our place.  There’s nothing especially wrong with it objectively.  I’m not specifically against any of the elements I described in themselves, and I could imagine circumstances under which someone looking for a place to party lazily for a weekend with friends and like-minded RVers would find it paradise.  ish.  There’s a marina with water toys for rent.  There’s a decent playground.  There are at least two pools, though I never saw anyone swimming.  There’s an arcade, in which our kids had an excellent time killing an hour or so, and did an especially good job cooperating with each other (Tacco will cover that story I think).  And the San Diego sun.  It’s just… it didn’t feel like a “splurge.”

I took one picture there, and one only.  It’s Woodsprite “playing” alone by filling a few of her beach/sand toys with dirt.  Dirt.  My thought when I took it was “Has it come to this?  This is what I’m providing for our kids to amuse themselves?”  That’s overblown I know, but remember I was just coming off San Elijo’s wild ride of emotions.  I knew we could do better.

So here’s a lesson learned.  I’ve realized upon analysis of this particular stay that I’m far more critical of places that I leave the family when I have to depart for work, even if I’m departing for a short time.  Seems obvious when I read what I just wrote, but it’s new to me, revelation-wise.  Questionable places we can deal with, but I’d like to be with them when we do so.  The corollary here is that the private RV parks (see my completely unscientific breakdown of the various types here) have their own widely varying character when compared to the state or national parks, and a bit of in-depth research is advisable, particularly if I’ll be leaving the family there.

Let me take a turn toward the positive – I did make an attempt to create a few good memories there by renting a Wave Runner for bit while I was with the family during my layover.  It could only carry 3 people at a time, but it’s hard not to sport a smile when zipping over the water or doing tight 360s.  And the kids loved it!  Me too.  I’ve got a long history with personal watercraft, though I’ve managed to avoid owning one.  I got to go out with each kid individually and each combination of two kids, as well as letting Keeper drive it some.  Lots of hootin’ and hollerin’ and “do it again!”  It was a blast for all involved.  Almost, that is.  Unfortunately my victory was dampened by the last run, in which I had Tacco and Woodsprite aboard.  Though 90% of the watery circuit was unbridled joy, I managed to take my very last turn too tightly combined with hitting a swell at exactly the wrong spot, and tweaked Tacco’s already soreness-prone neck.  My victory took on an asterisk.  I hate to see my wife in pain.

Equally tricky to characterize was our decision to grab fish tacos in Pacific Beach rather than stay at the RV park and BBQ.  Ridiculously tasty fish tacos are one of San Diego’s culinary fortés – generally there are several varieties available, from shark to albacore to scallop to wahoo and everything in between, all completely fresh.  Tacco and I had both had memorable fish taco experiences in PB back in the day, so we figured we’d create a new one with the kids.  We jumped in the car and made the short drive.

In our (lengthy?) absence, however, something had changed in PB.  Possibly it’s we who changed, but we did not expect to see Spring Break in October.  I had remembered semi-quaint open air taco bars that tempted you to linger over a pitcher of beer and tacos for hours while watching the sun set over the ocean.  Was I thinking of somewhere else?  Maybe I was just much younger then.  This was the opposite of quaint, or even semi-quaint, with every restaurant and bar (none of which looked familiar) packed standing room only with dolled-up 20-somethings on the prowl or stumbling into the boardwalk.  The music was booming and Spring Break-y as well.  Despite our brutally long search for a parking spot and several-block hike to the beachfront, we realized fairly quickly that this was no place for a family and we punted.  Another lesson learned, though this one I’m not sure we could have foreseen.  We did manage to persevere and find some good off-beach tacos on the way back to the RV though.

Icing on the cake to follow… After working the redeye flight back to Boston that night (post tacos) and turning right back around onto the next flight back to San Diego, we tidied up camp and bolted.  I was tired to say the least, having spent most of the last 12 hours on an airplane, and Tacco was reasonably DONE with Campland.  We had arranged an appointment to have Davista’s roof fixed after the Carpinteria Captain Crunch incident, and had to drive 45 minutes to the north to drop it off before packing ourselves and everything we needed for the upcoming week into the minivan I’d rented to get me back from the airport and assist with the gear shuffle.  It was there that I noticed that my wallet wasn’t in any of the two or three places I normally keep it.  Not to worry, I thought, it’ll turn up shortly.

It did not turn up.

Losing one’s (full – driver’s license, military ID, pilot license, credit cards, cash…) wallet is a massive pain under the best of circumstances; these were far from the best of circumstances.  All I can advise, with the utmost urgency, is that if you ever decide to take a trip like this, please, please do not lose your wallet.

Hours of agonizing, phone calls, and step-retracing led me to the 95% conclusion that I had left it in the campsite when we departed, though no one had turned in a lost wallet at Campland.  We returned to the campsite once we had checked in at Coronado and found another RV parked there, which was odd given that there were so many vacant spots, but at least I had someone to ask if they’d seen the wallet.  No one appeared home in the RV, so I left a note on their door with my phone number explaining what had happened and asking that they please call / text if they had any information.  And that was that, nothing heard.

This was my stupid mistake, I know this and I take full responsibility.  But!  But… I can’t help but think that if someone left such a note on my door, I would at the very least send a text saying “sorry, didn’t find anything.  Best of luck.”   I can’t imagine why they would’ve made no attempt to communicate at all.  Unless…

Argh, never mind.  Let’s go to Coronado, I heard it’s AMAZING there.

In previous posts, I think I have mentioned one of our family’s traditions. Every year Flight and I take turns planning an anniversary trip and it’s a total surprise to the other person. The planner gets to tell the person what to pack and reveal the year’s destination in whatever manner serves best. It’s been a really cool tradition, one I can take no credit for as we stole the idea from my cousins. I got to plan our first anniversary trip, which was really only fair since Flight pretty much planned our wedding because he was far closer to the Matterhorn than I…

For our first anniversary, I booked us a place in a lodge on the Utah-Idaho border that was well known for its backcountry snowmobiling, which neither of us had ever done. Cool, right? My preconceived notions didn’t get much further than imagining crisp wind whistling by as we carved out fresh tracks in the wilderness, you know, kinda like skiing but bigger and faster, and maybe a little louder.

Have you ever been snowmobiling?

Two observations that remain firmly entrenched in my memory bank from the one and only time I have ever driven a snowmobile. First, they are neither as steady, nor as sturdy as they look. I, ahem, do not have the best history driving things that are unwieldy, especially those that have a tendency to flip. When snowmobiles do flip, and make no mistake that will happen if I am at the helm, and tumble down a hill executing roughly 13.5 rotations before coming to rest perfectly turtled, more so resembling a dead insect with feet in the air than any cryptodira I’ve ever seen. Another point of information, such inverted snowmobiles are rather difficult to return to rights and require a surprisingly long period of time properly on their treads to de-flood the engine before they will again start. During this pause in activity you may lose any remaining feeling in your fingers. I am not making this up.

A little aside…  I am lamenting not having taken a picture of the incident as I just tried to google “upside down snowmobile wreck” and found no images anywhere close to what I managed.

The second thing I remember is that I had never been so physically exhausted following any activity. To put things in perspective, at this point in my life I had: been through the Navy’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) School; run the Marine Corps Marathon; graduated from the Naval Academy; and slept 18 hours a day as I recovered from a near-fatal car crash. I knew what it was to be tapped out and snowmobiling put all of those experiences to shame. Every single muscle in my body hurt, my intercostals (the muscles spanning the ribs) complained with every breath and parts of my legs to which I had yet to be introduced steadily keened with my every lurching step back to the lodge after turning in our keys. Fancying ourselves in reasonable shape then, Flight and I marveled at how unexpectedly wiped we were after our day backcountry snowmobiling.

Our two-hour surfing lesson left me similarly baffled at being equally depleted, with the added bonus of sporting bruised ribs. Granted my level of fitness is certainly not where it was 15 years ago, but I can certainly see why surfers must be in great shape. Two hours of paddling through non-standard wave sets, pushing into a perfectly balanced surfer crouch to ride the waves in, and hauling myself back on the surfboard to start all over again was utterly draining. Push-ups and burpees have nothing on so performing these repetitive motions.

Having never really gotten the hang of skateboarding in my middle school years and, acutely aware that I need no further traumatic brain injury, I haven’t tried snowboarding, so I had no idea I was goofy. I’m sure many of you would be happy to point out that my goofiness is quite obvious (you’re welcome for the soft pitch), but in such boarding circles the term refers to which of your feet rides forward on the board. Apparently I stand much more naturally on a surfboard with my right foot forward and most people have their left leading the way. Who knew?!

I had attributed my initial awkwardness in getting up to a crouch to, well, it being my first go at this whole surfing business. That and I don’t exactly have perfect balance. However, after I performed several Nestea plunges as the safest bail-out maneuver somewhere almost mid-crouch, I swapped my surfboard leash to my other ankle thinking I should give it a shot goofy-footed. While I’d love to say I then proved to be a natural and skillfully rode every subsequent wave, that would be a far cry from the truth (see the pictures on Flight’s post here…)

Changing to goofy-footed certainly made it less awkward for me to get up, and I did so on my next try, but it was still incredibly hard work. So much so that it got to the point that while I was so stoked to have gotten up on any given wave, I was rather hesitant to ride it all the way into the beach for fear of having to paddle all the way back out through the surf to try to catch the next one. Exhaustion notwithstanding, the experience lived up to its righteous hype and I hope we have the opportunity to catch a few more waves while exploring Southern California.  In the meantime, I’ll vividly remember all I associate with this view of San Elijo and pray my ribs heal before then…

Oh man San Elijo, what a roller coaster you were.

Somehow I grew up about 65 miles away from San Elijo State Beach (pronounced “San E-LAY-ho” by two separate locals, so I guess that’s right?) and I never knew it existed until I was deep into the search for RV campgrounds in Southern Cal a few months ago.  It’s in Encinitas (actually Cardiff by the Sea), which is in the northern part of San Diego county, and has a popular campground which stretches about a mile along the coastal bluff, with multiple stairways down to the ocean.  There’s a surf school on site, which should tell you a bit about how the surf conditions generally are there.

This is another stay I had been looking forward to ever since I had booked it back in June or so.  I figured that if I hadn’t taken a surf lesson yet, this would be the place, and I envisioned bonfires on the beach and happy kids (mine) playing with other happy kids in the sand.

We pulled into Spot 1 (Spot 1!) after a short drive down from Crystal Cove and found ourselves right next to the general store, the entirely decent taco shop, the bathrooms/showers, the steps to the beach, and yes, the even the surf school.  BUT… no hookups, so no power or water.  And it was dusty / dirty rather than sandy.  That dust gets everywhere.  And the beach, while easily accessible, is the kind that is a bit muddy at low tide and disappears entirely at high tide.  A shallow reef extends out a few hundred yards, and is pretty much exposed at low tide.  There would be no bonfires.

But Spot 1!  And San Elijo!  I was excited.  Cautiously.

Keeper tends to be the arbiter of campsite taste.  He’s the one who will quickly assess the surroundings and give it a thumbs up or thumbs down.  His criteria are different than mine or Tacco’s, in fact his favorite so far was Pismo Beach and I’m still not sure why.  Cell coverage and wi-fi are important, as is electricity.  Good showers are a must, and by “good” he means, as far as I can tell and in descending order of importance: 1) No spiders 2) No ants 3) No other vermin 4) Reasonably clean 5) Not coin or token operated 6) Hot water 7) A strong spray pattern.  As he surveyed Spot 1, he seemed to be cautiously optimistic as well.  A good start — perhaps.

Then we went down to the beach with our Boogie Boards.  It was near low tide, and Keeper didn’t like that reef one bit.  He did have a point.  It was rocky and fairly uneven, and difficult to tell what you were about to step on.  Further out it was mostly covered by long sea grass, making it even more tricky to know if you were stepping on something dangerous or unsavory.  More importantly for him, though, the waves we wanted to ride swept us across the reef at an average depth of about a foot, and if you’ll recall, Keeper’s big hurdle to body boarding was his remembering being tossed over the front of his board a few times, resulting in his head getting ground into the sand.  Though I attempted to soothe his fears of getting a face full of seaweedy rock by noting how gentle the waves were once they got on top of the reef, he wasn’t having it, and insisted we head down the beach to where it appeared to be more sandy.

Not a bad plan at all, at least in theory.  In practice we bumped up against the fact that Keeper never really learned to catch waves by paddling with them, instead he would push off the bottom and sort of jump partially onto the board as it caught the whitewash.  It works in very specific conditions, but isn’t really transferable onto others.  So he struggled.  A lot.  At some point after getting rolled over by several waves and not being able to stay on his board, he loudly told me he was DONE, JUST DONE!  I tried to help him get back to shore, which he was also struggling with, by explaining that getting on his board and paddling was the easiest way to go, but that wasn’t something he’d learned to do, and trying to swim and drag the board behind him wasn’t working either.  Complicating things further, I realized at this point that we were stuck in what appeared to be a mild rip current, and were getting pulled out uncomfortably close to the lineup of surfers & much larger waves, and were well past the point at which we could touch the bottom.

After some struggle, I was able to help him get in finally, but he emphatically told me that he was done with Boogie Boarding, the beach, this trip, everything.  And then he went to take a shower and found that every single one of the showers failed 6 of his 7 shower tests.  He proclaimed this the worst shower yet and a crappy site and retired to his pre-adolescent cave to brood.  So much for bonding over Boogie Boarding…  all that progress lost.

Here’s something I realized with Keeper today, though, and it goes deeper than a frustrating day in the ocean.  He sat up in the front seat with me for part of the drive down from Crystal Cove, and happened to receive a call from one of his good friends from Maryland, which he then followed by a call to his other good friend back there.  He was thrilled to talk to them.  I was fortunate enough to hear his end of the conversation and get some unfiltered insight into how he’s doing with this whole endeavor.  He was surprisingly balanced in his assessment, but the one thing that stuck out is that he misses people.  He’s an introvert, but he was very clear that what is eating at him primarily is that he hasn’t been around a kid his age since he can remember.  And while my first instinct was to find counter-examples to point out to him after he was off the phone, I quickly realized he’s right, he hasn’t.  There were a couple hours at the football tailgater with the twin daughters of a school friend who are a year older and whom he’d just met, but as far as really hanging out with anyone who wouldn’t be gone in an hour or two, he hasn’t done that since our friends in West Yellowstone, back in August.  It’s wearing on him.  Likely Firebolt and Woodsprite too.  Which means it’s wearing on me.  Not the missing people part, but the “how does this affect our kids?” part.

I don’t have a good solution to that one.  I had envisioned meeting people + kids on the road who were doing similar things, or at least were somewhat like-minded.  That has happened exactly zero times so far.  Looking at the whole with some experience now, I’m not sure why I thought it would have, and it seems like another oversight.  Though this one I don’t know how to fix.

There have been days, and so far we’ve all had them (except probably Woodsprite), where things just don’t seem to be clicking, and the nature of our situation amplifies the “bad day” vibe.  And as we’ve both mentioned, being so close to each other – all the time — contributes to our occasional off moods’ being infectious.  Also, it’s difficult to see from inside, but I would guess that being so far out of our normal comfort zone, with very little real routine or familiarity to fall back upon, intensifies the wild swings.  It doesn’t really make sense.  Logically I could explain to you at any given moment how fortunate we are to be doing this and what an amazing, singular experience it is, but that doesn’t make the flailing, when it happens, any less acute.

That’s where I was on Day 1 of San Elijo.  What on Earth are we doing, we’re wandering aimlessly, we can’t afford this, we don’t know where we’re going to live, we’re tainting our impressionable kids’ childhood, and off into the stratosphere…  Roller coaster.

That’s a strange mental place to be when you look out your window and see the below view, which should remind you to pull back and stop the damn thinking.  And to a certain extent, it did.

The flip side of wild swinging is that it can, and does, change on a dime.  I made a concerted effort to turn a corner on the day with a leap of faith and signed Tacco and I up for the next day’s surf lesson, even though it was pricey, this beach was less nice than the 3 we’d just visited, I didn’t feel like it, etc etc.   And the girls and I took a short night walk on the beach with the black light to see which sea creatures glow.  Turns out sand crab antennae are pretty cool looking.

Day 2 revealed perfect waves and a postcard view from Spot 1 after the best “sleeping to the sound of crashing surf” night yet.

I took a short bike ride into town and found a supermarket with 3 different kinds of fresh poke, rows of fresh fish, a wall of craft beer, and something called “Cardiff Crack,” which I guess is their take on marinated tri-tip that has gained some fame well outside of Southern Cal.  I could feel the optimism rising until we, and by we I mean 90% Tacco / 10% me, had to wrestle the kids through their homeschooling tasks.  Firebolt was the one digging in her heels the most this time, and as our surf lesson time approached (and the tide went back out, killing the beautiful sets of waves, and the clouds rolled in) we finally threw up our hands and told them we’d finish tomorrow.  Up… and down.

And then the surf lesson…  my leap of faith in beating back the negativity and booking it paid off.  It was one of the things I had identified as a goal for our trip back before we started.  One would think that someone who grew up in Southern California and spent a good bit of his summer time on the beach would’ve learned to surf by osmosis.  Not so.  I have plenty of time on body boards and playing in waves in general and am completely comfortable there, but surfing is something you need to be deliberate about, and I never was.  We put the kids down on the beach to play and headed up to get our wetsuits and longboards.

The first thing I discovered about surfing was that I needed this lesson.  I’d messed around on a board before and assumed it couldn’t be too hard to figure out, but not really gotten close to getting up.  Within 15 minutes I realized I had been doing it wrong every other time I’d tried, and probably wouldn’t have gotten there by myself.  We were in tiny waves – just the remains of what was breaking further out (and even those had diminished from earlier in the morning) – but that turned out to be a good thing for learning.  I actually found it pretty easy to get up once I was told how to do it, and caught many waves.  We weren’t really moving fast enough to do much maneuvering, but… dragon slain!

Tacco and I went to bed that night thoroughly exhausted and happy to have taken that leap.

Our San Elijo time was short and only semi-sweet, but valuable in hindsight.  Next up is San Diego and the end of the California beach phase of our trip.  I have a trip to fly over the weekend, but fortunately I was able to snag a trip that brings me back to San Diego for a 24 hour layover, so despite the cross-country commute, the disruption should be minimized.  It strikes me, as it has many times before, that I’m insanely fortunate to have a profession that affords me the flexibility and opportunity to do this sort of trip while continuing to work.  Roller coaster, yes… but I do like roller coasters, even if the twisty ones leave me reeling.

On our first morning at Crystal Cove, unable to find the elusive pressure valve, I declared to Flight I needed some alone time and meandered down the hill to carve out some solitude along the Moro (and sometimes Morro) Canyon trails.

It was a brisk start to the day, meaning my breath was swirling about me in the valley the sun had yet to broach. I hoped I would be warm enough as I stretched my legs and mind. Before I even got to the trail head I saw these sweet creatures making their breakfast of what looked like the remnants of an airport Starbucks fruit cup offering.  Without the cup.

Pausing momentarily to take a few “aw, fer cute…” pictures of the bunnies, I picked up my pace again as I entertained a series of Madagascar-worthy circle-of-life images pop into my head and wondered whose dinner they might soon become.

I find that hiking tends to give my thoughts the freedom and space to move about until they can settle into more orderly groupings so I might make sense of them. I once saw a card that said, “As she washed the dishes, she watched her thoughts dash out into the yard and up the tree.  From there they almost made sense.” That’s about right.

 

As I lengthened my stride and noted there was no cell coverage in this particular valley, I heard the stirrings of the valley floor entirely unfazed by the echoes of my invasion. More circle-of-life images dashed through my transom and I briefly wondered which cousin of Shere Kahn (or maybe a wayward garden gnome) might be stealthily stalking me through the underbrush and would be responsible for my  demise.  Moments later my brooding returned to unpacking Keeper’s attitude towards roadschooling.

“I just can’t take it seriously,” he maintains.

Well, that’s not going to work for anybody involved, so how can we shift his paradigm?  Now that we’ve been at it for a couple of months, we are likely due for a review of his experience to date and further discussion of roadschooling’s context, both of which would be very beneficial.  Ever since I have known Keeper, he has been unwilling to apply himself to any task he sees as without purpose or value.  Context is critical for him. Unfortunately (?), Keeper comes by that trait honestly, as I, too, have little patience for performing checks in seemingly unnecessary boxes to turn spreadsheet values from red to green. But I digress…

The scaffold of our next discussion with Keeper on roadschooling was taking better shape with each step, and I was eager to bounce my thoughts off of Flight so we could then further streamline the concepts and strategize on our briefing techniques. I finally captured our collective thoughts in a later roadschooling update here, which Keeper and I discussed later that afternoon.

Satisfied I had harvested all I might from my mental gymnastics, I turned around to retrace my path and caught sight of these:

Clearly squash of some variety…  Zucchinielons? Pumpkini? No idea what they are exactly, but I wondered if these, along side any upended fruit cups, were what sustained the valley’s robust rabbit (and possibly garden gnome) population.

I returned to camp to find Flight and the kids tidying up from brekkie. We then fleshed out our plans for the rest of the day. Beach, beach, and more beach.  Hopefully, I was praying, that did not include a repeat performance of yesterday’s swimming with sharks. Actually, Flight was keen to recreate some childhood memories, so we piled into the car to head to the beach just north of where we’d been yesterday.

Our late morning evolved into a Marine Biology lab as the kids explored the exposed tide pools, this time very mindful of expected behavior:

And when I say kids, I mean Flight was the Head Boy in charge of the exploration.

Very much a tactile learner (unless it includes holding anything that crawls, slithers, walks sideways, or resides in the ocean), my inner 5-year old was thrilled to find copious bunches of what Firebolt aptly named, “Nature’s Bubble Wrap.”

These little kelp pods erupt violently under the weight of a human, producing the most delightfully satisfying pops.  Ever mindful of the posted good tidepooler’s guidance, I followed at the rear, snapping pictures as they presented themselves, and enthusiastically jumped on any haphazard collections of “bubble wrap” in our path.  In my defense, I figured these collections were adrift and far away from their roots, thus they were no longer living and certainly not the plants the rules had referenced.  And, I did leave them in situ once they’d been ruptured…

The waves steadily picked up throughout our morning’s science lessons and, while the topography of this particular beach made for great tide pooling, it was considerably less inviting for frolicking in the waves, so we opted to return to the beach of yesterday’s USO sighting.

We turned to sandcastle operations since the waves were too high to safely enjoy. As WoodSprite and Firebolt became too engrossed in their construction efforts, they turned their backs on the ocean. Bad idea jeans. Actually, they became bad idea shorts and underwear, as our girls were surprised to find themselves soaked to the skin from the waist down in the wake of a retreating wave. However, a testament to their positive attitudes, they took the ocean’s, ahem, bum-rush all in stride.

We returned to Davista to wash sand and salt water from places most uncomfortable before feasting on more InstantPot goodness.  The sunset was a lovely treat as we thought about our upcoming surfing adventures in San Elijo…

More Pacific Ocean beaching, this time in Crystal Cove. Two things stand out from our time on this specific beach: the Unidentified Swimming Object (USO) and another come-to-Jesus meeting with Keeper about homeschooling, which will be a separate post.

Before I delve into what our beach day looked like from my perspective, I should share a little about my relationship with the ocean. Like many, I am in awe of the ocean. The life she sustains, the treachery she can unleash, the beauty she can exhibit, the mystery she hides, all of it is awesome in the truest sense of the word. My undergraduate work in ocean engineering focused on evaluating how the ocean moves, the forces she wields, and how to build structures to withstand her fury. While I have developed a healthy (wary?) respect for her and her inhabitants, I really do love to be on the water be it sailing, kayaking, stand-up paddle boarding, or cruising (on our former Sea Ray, not haze grey and underway) – and I always prefer to celebrate these water sports where there is great visibility. I’d like to say it’s because I really enjoy seeing all the various forms of sea life and delight in their observation while I explore their home environment, but that would be an outright lie. In truth, sea life creeps me out, especially when I can’t see who might be circling me and sizing me up for lunch.

Taking a moment to reflect I can probably identify several key instances that have directly contributed to this mild (healthy, I maintain) phobia that does not appear to be improving with age. Permit me a sea story or three…

While on my first deployment to the Western Pacific, my P-3C aircrew was tasked with flying our boss’s boss (the Commodore) from Japan, to Diego Garcia, BIOT. We were to remain there for five days while a crew from our sister squadron flew the Commodore on to tour operations in the desert, after which we flew him back to Japan. Our transit required a couple stops along the way in Bangkok and Singapore (one does what one must for Uncle Sam) before we got to the tropical paradise of Diego Garcia, which is a 17 mi² coral atoll in the middle of the Indian Ocean housing a military base. This southernmost island of the Chagos Archipelago, is sometimes only a reef, sometimes actual land that separates the center lagoon from the ocean.

Upon landing in Diego Garcia our crew was required to sit through an hour-long in-chop brief mandatory for all arriving personnel. While overviews of the base and locations of amenities were identified, critical safety rules were also covered, the most notable of which was “Don’t wade in past your knees ocean-side because of the sharks. Swimming in the lagoon is fine, but, seriously, you need to stay out of the ocean.” I’m a reasonably decent swimmer and thought skeptically, “Um, okay.”

During one of our days off the flight schedule, my crew wanted to go deep-sea fishing. We all meandered over to the sign-up shack and there I perused the pictures of some of the recent trophy catches proudly on display while the others engaged in an information-gathering mission. Nearly twenty years later I still remember the grisly details of these images.

What caught my attention first was a picture of a marlin head suspended between confounded fishermen, no marlin body, just the carcass head. As our squadron was known as the Fighting Marlins, I didn’t think that was especially kind (or impressive) until I read the caption listed below. The marlin head alone had weighed in around 150 lbs and that was all that was left of the mighty fish by the time the crew had hauled it in. Apparently sharks, lots of them, made quick work of the majestic creature as it was fighting to evade capture.

As I digested this information, I immediately recognized two certainties: 1) I had no future as a deep-sea fisherwoman and begged out of the trip and 2) as briefed, the lagoon was a much better swimming hole.

That is until I got to the next photo of interest where, between two fishermen sporting self-congratulatory grins, hung an intact 55 lb barracuda. I had no idea that deadly cousin to the piranha (in my head) grew to that proportion. My eyes widened further when I read the location of its capture – this underwater beast of prey made its home in the lagoon. Lovely. I’m sorry, where again is the pool?

Having logged many hours in and out of chlorinated water as a competitive diver, I have always appreciated being able to see directly to the bottom of the pool, meaning you can always see what might be keeping you company as you swim about minding your own business. Perhaps my phobia has effloresced over the years because my imagination is so vibrant that, especially when I can’t see what’s swimming around me, I can visualize the most spectacularly deadly creatures, none of which have yet been scientifically identified and all of whom are very, very hungry. Frankly, I still have some aquatic animal-trust issues even when I can see who’s who in the marine zoo.

When we were newly married and well before we were blessed with kids, Flight and I took a Windjammer cruise among the Tahitian Islands. It was glorious. One of the activities we opted for was to go scuba diving with sharks. Sounds cool, right? It was, initially, especially for my first scuba experience.

As soon as we got to the dive-site, with as much bravado as I could muster, I dropped into the water and descended to the ocean floor some thirty-odd feet below the surface. As I was looking around, taking in all the sea creatures and being very conscious of where I might find our dive master in the event something unexpected happened, I belatedly wondered why exactly we were not in cages to view these savage creatures.

A short while later, our dive master got our attention and pointed up to the surface where one of the deck hands started throwing chum into the water. We then watched as dozens of lemon (or maybe they were of the tiger variety – I don’t remember) sharks homed in on the floating buffet, circling the boat and thrashing against each other as they jockeyed for bloody morsels. I sat mesmerized, trying to remember to breathe normally (underwater, really?) as I witnessed this churning deadly mass above me, idly wondering if I had the wherewithal to punch a shark in the nose to stop its attack. I thought I’d read that recommendation in some survival manual, or maybe it was suggested during Shark Week. Regardless of the information source, I didn’t even want to contemplate what might happen if said sucker-punched shark hollered for backup.

I have no clue as to how long into our dive the dive master indicated we should make for the surface, and do so with haste. Okay, I guess we’re coming to the end of our bottom time. I don’t recall exactly what they did so we could climb aboard again without surfacing amidst this writhing mass of shark bodies, but it was not until all hands were back on deck and accounted for did the tour guides say they’d never seen these typically docile (HA!) sharks act so aggressively.

 

As if to prove their point, they dumped the remainder of the chum bucket amidst their churning bodies, whose turmoil immediately ramped up to feeding frenzy. My comfortable-separation-from-sea-creature-distance grew by a factor of ten, which was tested years later with yet another seemingly mellow species.

Every year, Flight and I take turns planning an anniversary trip that is a complete surprise to the other.   We have ventured to many places and for one of our recent trips I took Flight to Grand Cayman where we swam with stingrays. Yep, my call too – I refuse try not to cower before my apprehension. While we sailed out to the reef where generations of fishermen used to clean their daily catch (meaning the rays associate boat engine noise with food and expectantly congregate to meet any vessels), I wondered how I would enjoy the experience.

As we approached the few other tour boats already anchored, I could see these beautiful creatures gracefully circling our catamaran as the brilliant blue water was no more than three feet deep. I remember taking a deep breath before climbing down the swim ladder to put my feet on the ocean floor, praying I wouldn’t be the one to step on any of them. I had to work very hard to overcome my rising panic when the first of the rays swam by me, gently caressing my leg as it passed.  Although I managed to woman-up and solidly held a stingray passed over to me after she was caught by our tour guide (that’s an art, by the way, one that Flight managed with only once accidentally sticking his finger in a ray’s nose – impressive!), I came away from the experience appreciating the beauty of these ocean dwellers yet keen to maintain our separation at a healthy distance.

Fast-forward a few years to our beautiful day at Crystal Cove. Savvy enough now to know I shouldn’t wear my backup Oakley shades while playing in the surf, I left them to keep my phone (and Firebolt) company on our towels before I approached the water’s edge. Clearly still a newbie when it comes to interacting with the actual ocean, I was closer to shore than Flight and WoodSprite and went through the briny rinse cycle once or twice before I made my way out to them. Keeper was out just past them, enjoying the relative safety of bobbing in the swells before they crested.

In a short 15 minutes of playing in the surf, the waves steadily grew to exceed our collective comfort level, especially with WoodSprite hovering in her life jacket and pinging back and forth between Flight and me. She was having a glorious time in the water, giddy as could be and with the utmost (and perhaps misplaced) trust in us both. After a quick conference with Flight on the increasing wave action, we agreed that it was time to extract ourselves from the growing danger.

Flight moved with WoodSprite to the shore. I watched their progress for a wave or two and turned around to encourage Keeper to make his way in as well. As I located him between crests, I saw, just beyond him, no more than five yards farther off shore, the pseudo-serpentine motion of a sizable rounded triangular black fin riding the water’s surface. Initially curious and trying to process what it was I was seeing, I watched its undulating motion for a moment until my mama bear instincts kicked in and I shouted to Keeper as calmly as I could muster, “Keeper, get out of the water. Keeper, now. Get out. Swim, Keeper. Now. GET OUT, KEEPER, SWIM. NOW.” As soon as he was closer to shore than I, I too hightailed it to dry land.

A little breathless from the adrenaline rush, my eyes immediately sought out Flight’s and nonverbally invited him to pull away from the kids to debrief. My brain had been running through all the possible explanations as to what it was I had seen (it had submerged and reappeared a couple of times), so I hoped for corroboration or disavowal of my observations. After acknowledging we had seen the same something, we agreed that whatever it was certainly wasn’t porpoising, so cetaceans were likely off the table. So that left what exactly?

Exactly.

I was just happy to rejoin oblivious Firebolt perched near our towels, giving thanks in accounting for all 100 fingers and toes of our flight.

Thankfully, it was months later when I did the research on the various possibilities and have come to the conclusion that, based on the apex and coloring defining the fin, it was likely a juvenile Shortfin Mako Shark or an adult shark of the Blue or Bigeye Thresher variety, none of which are docile or genteel creatures.   Hmm… It was that or one of the voracious beasts fabricated and continuously revised by my equally insatiable imagination…

Kidding, morale is just fine.

For the most part at least.  I’ve previously mentioned our higher highs and lower lows brought on by our focused living situation.  There’s much more there to unpack, but the broad lines are that things tend to get amplified when living in a moving fishbowl.  None of that got any better or worse in Crystal Cove, though, it’s just there, and will continue to be I’m sure.

Crystal Cove holds yet another sweet spot in my childhood and adolescence.  It sits right at the southern edge of Newport Beach on the border with Laguna Beach in Orange County (back then it wasn’t “The OC”).  My parents “found” it when searching for a semi-secluded beach to escape to back in the early ‘80s, and would take us on the somewhat longish drive down there when we wanted to have a more special beach day.  Back then it was completely undeveloped, and probably not even a state park.  Newport Beach just sort of ended and there was a stretch of about 5-10 miles of fifty foot cliffs to the ocean on the beach side, and desert-y hills on the land side.  You’d park in a dirt parking lot on top of the cliffs and hike down to scout out your spot, beach stuff in tow.  More often than not you’d only see a few other people there, and the beach has both an extensive complex of tide pools and some sandy, breaking-wave areas.  The only two nods to development were a tiny roadside eatery called the Crystal Cove Shake Shack, which specialized in date shakes – really good ones – and a tiny little area called the Crystal Cove Beach Cottages, which were, and still are, well-preserved beachfront mini-houses from the ‘20s.  They’re still available to rent, but they book out immediately a year in advance.

Today it’s different, of course.  Though it’s not 100% developed, what used to be the desert-y hills is now Newport Coast, with a few posh hotels, lots of upscale view homes, and an equally swanky strip mall with a Trader Joe’s, several restaurants, and boutique shopping.  The Crystal Cove Shake Shack was bought by Ruby’s, which is a ‘50s-style (but ‘80s vintage) diner chain in SoCal known for having their restaurants out at the end of various piers.  Crystal Cove proper is a state park, with several different fee areas filling in the blanks between the developed areas, and fortunately for us, now including a campground.

It was a relatively short drive from Malibu, punctuated by some teeth-gritting brought on by maneuvering Davista-Toad through the busy LA freeways.  The kids and Tacco were busy with homeschooling, so were mercifully unaware of my traffic induced stress level.  An uncharacteristically surly park ranger nearly read me the riot act when I pulled into what was evidently the wrong Crystal Cove State Park parking lot (the signage leaves a bit to be desired).  “Why are you here? This isn’t right.  Oh great, look, now you’re blocking everyone else” aren’t what you normally expect to hear from a uniformed public servant when a “the lot you want is just 2 miles down the road, just turn around right there in the parking lot!” will do just fine.  But everyone managed.  I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and speculate that it’s almost as stressful to see a beast like us pull up to your parking lot booth, filling up the road’s entire width and threatening to ruin your day, as it is to be at the controls of such a beast.

The campground wasn’t Carpinteria close to the beach, nor was it Malibu classy, but it was new, had hookups, plenty of space, and gorgeous sunsets.  We only had two days there (technically only one full day), so we got right to beach ops.

Keeper grabbed the Boogie Board and the girls grabbed the sand toys (Firebolt her Kindle), and off we went.  The surf had been growing steadily since Carpinteria, a function both of the various beach orientations and the offshore conditions.  We were able to get out and catch a few waves, but these were a bit more varsity than what had come before, and more suited to actual surfing.  Playing around in the waves board-free ended up being more the preferred activity.

It feels a little shameful to admit how much of a relief having a Trader Joe’s a mile away was.  We spent the first two months or so of our trip planning meals and associated grocery shopping meticulously, often with few easy options.  Nice to suddenly be able to pop in, grab whatever meals+goodies they had to offer, and then do it again the next day.  On top of that, they had a Settebello nearby, which is an authentic Neapolitan pizza place that I’m a big fan of.  Absolutely nothing wrong with eating pizza out now and then!

Day 2 afforded us the opportunity for a short morning bike ride, though Keeper wasn’t up for hitting the trails in earnest (and to be fair, there was a good bit of vertical – it would not have qualified as leisurely).  I noticed that the surf was now up a bit from the day prior, and wondered how it would affect our day’s post-homeschool activities.  As I write that I suddenly have a moment where I appreciate our good fortune to be able to be in a position to be concerned about how the surf will affect our afternoon on a Tuesday in mid-October.  Higher highs indeed.

We did have an interesting experience in today’s surf however.  Actually two interesting experiences in rapid succession.  At one point before the still growing waves had gotten too crazy, Tacco, Keeper, Woodsprite (with life jacket) and I got in to play a bit.  We were able to stay at a point at which we could still touch the bottom and most of the waves were breaking on the shore side of us, so “playing” consisted for the most part of swim/jumping over the top of the waves just before they broke, which Woodsprite absolutely loved.  I had already taught Keeper to go underneath waves which had already broken or were threatening to break on top of him, so I wasn’t concerned about his abilities in the water.  So far so good, but as often happens, a particularly large set came in, forcing me to go a bit further out so as to keep the wave from breaking on our heads.  Not a huge deal solo, but I was holding onto a lifejacket-supported Woodsprite, and hadn’t fully thought through the consequences of having to go underneath a wave while attempting to hang onto her.  That suddenly seemed like something I REALLY did not want to do, and the alternative (getting pounded by the wave, or worse still, sucked backwards and over the falls, and trying to hang onto her in the associated washing machine) seemed much worse.  As we swam further out, past where I could touch, I had the familiar “we’re not in extremis, but I can see it from here” feeling, accompanied by a surge of fight-or-flight instinct.  We went over the top of the first, and I could see at least two more building.  Sets generally last only about 3-6 waves as a rule, but this is the ocean – rule compliance is sketchy at best.  It could almost as easily just continue to get bigger, with rip currents thrown in for fun.

Woodsprite, of course, had no idea how dodgy things were getting and I didn’t want her to, so I explained to her in my calmest, “isn’t this fun?” voice that we might have to go underneath a wave, and that if we did that I’d ask her to hold her breath and hang onto me tightly while I pulled her down with me for a few seconds.  “Just like in the pool” (?? — We’ve never done anything remotely like that in the pool, and I doubted my ability to pull her too far down with a life vest on)

As luck would have it, the ocean decided to follow rules this time, and the set lasted about 4 waves, all of which we were able to get over the top of before they broke, and seeing a break in the action, I told Woodsprite we were going to swim in as fast as we could, which we did.  Disaster averted!  Sorta…

What happened next is strange.  I compare it to the phenomenon of pilots and UFOs.  There’s that old oft-repeated scene of the pilots in the cockpit seeing a flying saucer complete with green men and antennae darting by, and one looks to the other and asks “did you just see something?”  “Nnnnnope!”  And there’s a touch of truth to it.  Though on occasion we do see things in the night sky whose origins aren’t readily apparent, no pilot in their right mind would get on the radio and report seeing a UFO if they weren’t 100% certain that it was something hinky.  And even then they’d probably hesitate or even just press the “I forgot” button.

Here’s what I saw.  As I was getting out of the water with Woodsprite I looked back to see how Tacco and Keeper were doing.  They hadn’t been as far out as we had and had a bit more difficulty dealing with the breaking waves.  Another set of at least medium sized waves had come in as Woodsprite and I were getting out (ankle-deep or so by now), and as I looked at Keeper dog-paddling in the whitewater, I saw something blackish and triangular emerging from the water about 10’ from him.  Yes.  OK.  There were seals around.  I’d seen several poke their heads above water.  This did not look like a seal head.  There are also porpoises, and porpoises have dorsal fins.  It was likely a porpoise.  But porpoises also swim in a certain way, which causes their fin to sweep up and then down in a sort of circular motion (hence “porpoising”).  That’s not what this blackish, triangular thing did.  It just sort of moved a bit, and appeared to be pointing at him.  Mind you, this all happened within about a second.  I quickly looked to Tacco who was a few yards from him, and saw that she was firmly telling Keeper to get out of the water NOW.  Clearly she had seen it too.

They both got out and Tacco and I quickly debriefed:

“OK, did you see..”

“YES!  That’s why I told him to get out!”

“Does he know?”

“No, I’m pretty sure he didn’t see it and I didn’t want to freak him out.”

“What did it look like to you?”

“A fin.”

“Yeah, me too.  But it could’ve been a seal.”

“Yup, it could’ve.  But it looked like a fin.”

“Yup, it did.  Could’ve been a porpoise fin too.”

“Agreed.  It could’ve.  Maybe.”

We decided not to make a big deal (until it was time to blog about it of course)…  But we put an end to swimming ops for the day.  I say again, it was probably a porpoise.  Or something else we didn’t even think of yet.  But we won’t forget it.  And I suppose we should get around to telling Keeper the story before this goes live…

We switched over to sand castle ops for the remainder of the afternoon, and the waves continued to grow.  By late afternoon they were impressive by any standard, at least overhead and probably 8’ minimum (and to be clear, the pictures below are not of those waves.  Unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures of them).  What I assumed were local high schoolers kept showing up with their short boards, and by 5 or so there were at least a dozen out there next to the cliffs to our south.  I mention this because it fascinated me – it was the type of thrilling that ventures into and out of terrifying.  These kids were a few years older than Keeper and there was no safe way into or out of the line up – each paddle out required getting pummeled many times over.  My perspective may have made them appear closer to the rocks than they actually were, but it looked like not only were they dealing with the powerful waves trying to drown them, but the jagged rocks which they were feet from being dashed upon like rag dolls.  And then of course when they rode these beasts it was gorgeous to watch.  I’ve always had an appreciation for surfing; it has now deepened to a great respect.

Next up is San Elijo in Encinitas, another bluff-top campground at a surf-centric beach.  I’m not tired of them yet!

Not sure there is one, but that got your attention, no?  Having never been to Malibu, I really had no idea what to expect. In retrospect, what I guess I had envisioned was a little something like this… Mad Pacific Ocean views that go on and on, dotted by surfers bobbing in wait for the perfect wave and with the near-ground taken up by cozy retro beach cottages boasting price tags in the obscene category. On the rare occasion my preconceived notions come close to mirroring realty and this was such an instance.

Here is the view from our bedroom window.

And one later on without Flight blocking the scenery.

We pulled into the Malibu RV Park, home of these rock star views, with about 30 minutes to spare before we had to race to our oldest nephew’s water polo game. If my high school memories of this sport’s controlled violence had been refreshed when watching our youngest nephew play earlier this season, they were blown away by the barbarous execution of plays at the collegiate level. There seems to be something rather unsportsmanlike to have dozens of legit (sanctioned – !!!) plays with the intent of drawing a foul to remove a player from the opposing team specifically to press the numbers advantage. Good gravy.

Our nephew plays Center (or Hole Set), which is where the majority of the match’s skirmishes seem to unfold – or maybe that’s just where my concerned aunt’s focus was. While I’d like to think the other team’s center was responsible for the lightly veiled fisticuffs (he is a dainty 6’7” and 285 lbs and performed many an obvious gator roll just outside the 2-meter mark), I’m aware that our sweet nephew is quite capable of same calculated episodes of brawling. Over dinner both Flight and I observed to our nephew that his counterpart seemed especially brutal in the match. Our nephew flashed a grin and assured us, “Oh, he is, but when you get him out of the water, he’s the nicest guy ever.” I’m still not quite, quite sure what goes on underwater, but I am certain I want no part of it.

Intent on taking it all in, I had been mesmerized by the preview thrashings during warm up. My reverie was broken when I heard that this match was in part funded by the Calabasas something or other. I turned to Flight and asked, “Are we that near there?!?” “Yes, we are, so if you’d like to see your cousins, you should contact them.” As I have previously mentioned, my sense of California geography is rather, um, lacking. I thought we had one or two drives ahead of us before we neared this particular outcropping of Los Angeles and had it on my mental calendar to contact my cousins later in the week with plenty of time to schedule a leisurely visit. Well, shoot. I immediately sent a quick email and fortunately made impromptu plans to get together late the following morning. More on that shortly…

After considerable hand wringing (by me), the Pepperdine-Long Beach State game came to its conclusion with our nephew’s team the decided victors. We took him out for a celebratory dinner at Duke’s. This restaurant chain holds fond memories for me as Flight and I spent one of our first non-date dates hanging out in the Waikiki original comparing our respective minimal grasps of the Dutch language. While growing up I had been yelled at firmly spoken to in Dutch by my father and Flight had previously dated a Dutch girl, which meant we were then on equally poor footing with our vocabulary. Flight has since become fluent in the language (lucky!), having studied Dutch at the Defense Language Institute prior to his posting as an exchange pilot with the Dutch Navy, whereas my familiarity with the Dutch language has not advanced noticeably. I have often marveled that while some men might take up a new sport to get in good with a future father-in-law, learning my father’s native tongue and living in the fatherland really goes above and beyond. Good man. Both of them.

We parted ways with our nephew hoping, but not really, to see him over Thanksgiving. If his team performed well for the remainder of the season (WOO HOO – GO WAVES!) he’d be stuck in the pool with his teammates over the holiday (Um, yay?). If they didn’t do as well as they hoped (boo!), he’d join us in Grass Valley at his Dad’s parents’ place, which is truly a special gathering (YES!).

The next morning we had a delightful, albeit it far too short, visit with my father’s brother’s daughter and her family. Of all my first cousins, she’s the one with whom I have spent the most time – and I think the world of her. She lived with us for a summer in Algiers while I was four and my sister was newly on the scene to help my folks as we all adjusted to becoming a family of four – pretty cool gig for a high school summer. She also stayed with us for a stretch while getting her feet on the ground in the professional music scene in Chicago. She is a classically trained orchestral flutist and was on the soloist circuit for a while before she packed that in, moved to LA and started a now very successful television film company. No drive, that one.

Because our short time together was so precious, Flight and I acknowledged our bad parenting before permitting our kids unlimited screen time so we could catch up with minimal interruptions. Their oldest is away at Texas A&M studying Ocean Engineering (because that’s what all the cool kids do) and the youngest was off taking the SAT before his high school water polo tournament later that afternoon. Obsession with this ruthless sport must be a California thing, not unlike Maryland’s Lacrosse Madness (that’s a story for another time…). Although neither my cousin nor her husband is officially retired yet, they are both spending less time working and have become involved with several community projects, not the least of which was starting a local youth orchestra. Good for them.

We were so busy visiting that I neglected to take any pictures to prove it actually happened, so you might be thinking I’m making this all up. As expected, I had a fantastic time with them and am still wondering why we haven’t made it a more regular occurrence. When last we connected I was solidly pregnant with Firebolt and I’m hoping it won’t be another nine years before we see them next.

My heart replenished with all the great family time, we headed to the beach for a leisurely afternoon. We each assumed our standard positions: Keeper and Flight were boogie boarding, Woodsprite was frolicking at the shoreline, and Firebolt was engrossed in a book. After twenty minutes or so of baking in the sun, I decided it was time to cool off in the waves, where I pulled a total rookie move.

For those of you far savvier than I, this needs no explanation, but for the rest of us clowns residing in a big top, I offer this observation. Although I may have earned my undergraduate degree studying Ocean Engineering and might even have taken a course on Wave Dynamics, it was somehow lost on me that in practice, despite our best efforts to quantify her actions, the ocean really just does what she wants. For example, should one be nanoseconds tardy to the wave riding party, she has no qualms about running said dawdler through an aggressive shoreline wash cycle, complete with sinus cavity flushing. While I have previously experienced such aggressive drummings, it was never while sporting brand new Oakley sunglasses perched on my nose. Flight and Keeper both looked at me quizzically as I prepared to body surf, but neither of them said a word about the new glasses adorning my face, perhaps operating under the incorrect assumption that I knew what I was doing. My angel similarly remained silent. Perhaps she was too busy shaking her head…

In case you were wondering, Oakley Fives have a float time of about three seconds (Flight briefly had eyes on them when I resurfaced, spluttering) before they become one of Ariel’s trophies. Since my back-up pair looks as though the girls have repeatedly used them as an American Girl doll-sized skateboard (they haven’t), it looks like I’ll be running to the Navy Exchange to replace them when we get to San Diego next week.

Knucklehead.

Flight already mentioned that the Malibu RV Park was pretty incredible, which it was, and that we’d arrived in the midst of a vintage camper rally boasting a Pirate Night shindig, but he neglected to mention our neighbors. We got to talking with the lovely family in the next spot over. They were visiting from Denmark and doing an aggressive tour of the Western US before flying to New York the following morning.

When asked where they had traveled so far, they mentioned they’d been in Oregon for the wildfires and Las Vegas for the shooting – not exactly the best taste of the good ol’ US of A. I further cringed when they told me they, too, had stopped in Solvang. While the Disney-esque town little resembled their homeland, they pronounced the Danish pastries as being both dead on and delicious. I guess we will have to try them our next pass through – Denmark, that is, not Solvang. Leery of compounding whatever assessments of our country and her inhabitants they might be making, I chose not to share to my favorite (and only) childhood memories of Denmark, which, sadly, include nothing from outside the gates of the original Legoland.

Speaking of Legoland, we’ll be abstaining from that park on this trek through Southern California. WoodSprite is eager to pay homage to the mouse and, as it will be for her birthday celebration at the end of the month, we’ll just go with that. But first, to Crystal Cove!

If you’re departing by air out of Long Beach to points North, your flight path takes you over the ocean just north of Palos Verdes, and then into a right turn that takes you back over the coastline at Malibu.  One day few years ago when I was doing just that, we were flying this departure as usual, and my mind wandered toward the normal “where do I want to raise my family?” dilemma.  I mentally hopscotched through the “near a JetBlue domicile would be great, but most of the places we’d want to live aren’t near JetBlue domiciles” squares and landed on “is there anywhere in Southern California we could live?”  Mind you, I hadn’t said a word up to this point – this was all familiar terrain for me, and I generally assume my mental meanderings aren’t of interest to my copilots.  But looking down, I saw the clear water sparkling in the sun, the gorgeous coastline with the Santa Monica mountains rising behind it, the waves breaking, and the huge green lawn in front of Pepperdine University (this is where we generally cross the shore).  Absentmindedly, I tossed out “you know… I could live in Malibu…”

He turned and looked at me blankly.  These being the first words I spoke in flight since “After Takeoff Checklist complete,” it was probably a bit jarring, but more than that, it was random and ridiculous.  Similarly nonsensical things I could’ve opened our flight with:

“you know… I could eat a perfectly seared filet mignon with lobster and butter”

“you know… I could drive a Lamborghini.”

“you know… I could vacation at an overwater bungalow in the Maldives”

“you know… I could not work for the rest of my life and just do whatever I wanted”

Is there anyone who couldn’t live in Malibu?  Sure, there’s the extra twenty or thirty million burning a hole in your wallet you’d need, but details…

There’s something very old school LA about Malibu when you peel back the veneer of fame and fortune.  Gidget was filmed there, the beaches are quite small and have a remote feel to them, everything looks a bit retro…  I picture the Beach Boys lip-syncing to Surfin’ USA in striped suits while people on longboards twice their height pretend to ride waves in the background.  Our choice of RV accommodation did nothing to disabuse me of this image.  The Mailbu RV Park sits on a bluff right above the Pacific Coast Highway with views of the ocean from every site and palm trees scattered throughout.  Unexpectedly, we landed there in the middle of a “rally,” which turned out to be a grouping of people with retro travel trailers dressed up and polished to the nines.  Sort of like an old car show, but with everyone staying the night to party in their cars and a pirate theme to boot.  If we were more ambitious we’d have attempted to mingle more with the rally-goers and taken part in the pirate parties, but we already had a somewhat full evening schedule [read: we fall asleep early].

 

Chief among our priorities was seeing our nephew, who was recently recruited to play water polo for Pepperdine and had a match this weekend.  As the RV park is about 2 or 3 miles up the coast from the campus, it was easy to visit and catch his match, for which he’d arranged getting our tickets.

There’s a funny family anecdote about Woodsprite on one of the first times she saw him at a family gathering.  She’s a bit tentative by nature, and he’s 6’7” with longish hair and a beard (though he may not have had the beard at the time).  When she first met him, he playfully chased after her, angling for a hug, and she came unhinged.  She was terrified of him the entire Thanksgiving weekend and hid whenever he was near.

This hug, however, lasted for about a minute or two; clearly she’s over that now.

Tacco has covered her impressions of a collegiate water polo match previously – I was at least as surprised as she was.  It’s brutal.  I now understand why so many Navy SEALs come from water polo playing backgrounds.  We saw a bloody gash over a player’s nose, another guy come out of the game with a bite wound on his hand, and brawl upon brawl in the water, with multiple “hold downs” where someone’s forcefully keeping an opposing player under for much longer than would seem prudent or legal.  Sure, it’s easy to hold your breath, but not while you’re maximally exerting yourself and don’t have the chance to inhale prior to being yanked under.  I’m surprised there aren’t more incidents of needing to stop the match to drag someone floating face down out of the pool to perform CPR.  Seriously, I am.

 

At any rate, it was an exciting match and Pepperdine defeated Long Beach State soundly, after which we were able to treat our nephew to dinner at Duke’s right on the water.  It happened to be parents’ weekend there as well, which made the stroll around campus after his match even more pleasant.  Hard to beat Pepperdine for campus location / beauty.

We drove up to Calabasas (through surprisingly rugged and remote Malibu Canyon) to visit some more family on Tacco’s side, but other than that it was a beach / rinse off / repeat type of weekend.  So relaxing, and Keeper built on his body boarding skills.  He still ignores his dad’s efforts to coach him on paddling into waves rather than staying in no more than waist-deep water and pushing off the bottom to get his forward motion, but it’s at least partially an 11-year-old’s job to ignore Dad’s advice.

 

The beach right below the RV park was excellent and sparsely visited.  It struck me how incredibly much beach square-footage Malibu sports when compared to the rest of LA – it really benefits from its remoteness.  We toyed with the idea of checking out some of the other beaches in the area, but ultimately decided we had a great one right at our doorstep, so why venture afield?

Perfect weather too, did I mention that?  It was.  LA folk are fond of telling outsiders it’s always like this, but I know from experience it isn’t.  It’s mild much of the time, that’s certainly true.  But crystal clear with perfect visibility and 85 degrees?  No, that’s a great day.  And we had three of them.

Everyone seems chilled out by it all, and we’re looking forward to our next stop in Crystal Cove, just south of LA on the border of Newport and Laguna Beach.

The only negative I can manage to toss in here is that on our drive out, we passed Surfrider Beach in “downtown” Malibu (which doesn’t exist, but this seems to be sort of the center of gravity of the place).  Looking out Tacco’s window I saw perfect, and I do mean PERFECT learner waves breaking off the point in a glassy sea, with what were clearly student surfers doing what I had been hoping to do.  If we had only ventured afield the day before, I could’ve joined them.  Maybe even the whole family!  OK, maybe not.  But if that’s your biggest complaint…

After we do our daily exercises in the roadschooling basics (you can learn more about what we’re doing here and a three months in summary here), we usually have the afternoons free to go out and play. Our field trips have included all sorts of outings (Junior Ranger evolutions at the National Parks, museums, hikes, beach exploration, river floats, etc.), but two of my favorites happened while we were in Santa Barbara.

With a nod to Kubo and the Two Strings, a catch phrase in our family has become, “You are a mean Mommy, aren’t you?” to which I always reply, “Yes. Yes, I am.” Because we opted to have school on Columbus Day (but school was held on the beach, so does that really qualify as mean?), we chose to forego studying the basics two day later and instead headed directly to the Physics Laboratory offered at Six Flags Magic Mountain.

Our first stop on this phase of our journey was at Cedar Point in Sandusky, OH, where we had talked about the three basic types of motion (constant, variable, and periodic) as well as requiring each of the kids to use accelerate and decelerate in at least three different sentences throughout the day, which they turned into quite an entertaining challenge. On our way to Magic Mountain we reviewed these types of motion, but today’s lesson was going to focus on Newton’s three laws of motion and the transformation of energy from one type to the next (e.g. potential (a roller coaster cresting a hill) becoming kinetic (picking up speed at the bottom of a hill) and eventually thermal (braking components must get hot as they slow the cars)). It was the perfect venue to explore Newtonian physics and thermodynamics – and it was free as we had already purchased season passes for Six Flags in Maryland and they are transferable between parks. Who knew?!.

When we pulled in, we were surprised to find ourselves in the parking lot nearest the entrance perfectly in line with the enormous orange and blue funnel for one of the water park rides. I always need to take a picture of where we park or make it a point to orient myself or else I will need to walk the endless rows of cars armed with the key remote to home in on our vehicle. Having only one day to explore this park, I was very glad to see that Magic Mountain’s water park was closed given there were so many wicked coasters to check out.  Thankfully, this was as close as we got…

The whole family offered a few surprises in what they would and would not ride. Flight now has little tolerance for having his brain scrambled and, strangely, he reaches his limit for rollercoasters before I do. I would have thought that with a tendency toward vertigo, roller coasters would be a no go for me. Instead it would appear that as long as I keep my eyes open and intently focused, as well as having my legs and/or arms anchored, I can tolerate most rides. Unless, of course, I grey out, which pretty much rocks my world and, sadly, that has been happening more often the longer I live in my body.

As Flight already mentioned and the empty parking lot foretold, there were few lines at the Park and upon arriving, Flight launched Keeper and me to go ride some of the big stuff while he stayed with the girls in the younger kids section. Keeper and I started with Goliath.

We rapidly moved onto Scream and Twisted Colossus, where Flight and the girls met up with us. Before we moved much farther around the park, Keeper and Flight backtracked slightly to ride Twisted Colossus (Flight’s status report: totally overhauled from back in the day, hardly the same ride…) and Goliath. The girls and I played a game of Golf to pass the time:

Keeper and I split off and waited in one of the few lines to ride Tatsu. He caught sight of the suspended riders dangling from their harnesses, turned to me and pronounced, “NOPE. No way. I am NOT riding THAT.” Apparently, to fall within his safety and/or disorientation tolerances, one must be standing or sitting upright for a coaster. Okay then, lunch it is!

Surprisingly, I was impressed with the (relatively healthy) food selection offered at Magic Mountain. Flight and I dined on sushi and edamame, while the kids had their standard combination of cheese and bread, with maybe a burger or two thrown in for good measure. Certainly no Single Thread, but it was far better than I have seen at other parks.

WoodSprite was intent on leading us to Ninja, one of the few roller coasters someone of her stature might ride.

Although we enjoyed other rides along the way, she was singularly focused until we all rode the Ninja.

The kids seemed to enjoy our lab day – and Firebolt finally became a roller coaster rider. Having waited in many a line with her during other park visits only to bail at the last minute, walking through the car to let the folks behind us ride instead before we regretfully made our way to the exit. This was a huge leap for Firebolt as she doesn’t always like to break away from her comfort zone. WOO HOO!

While Keeper, Firebolt, and Flight rode The New Revolution, WoodSprite and I took a turn on the Merrie Melodies Carousel before I kept Firebolt company on The New Revolution.

Overall, it was a fantastic Physics Lab experience, far better than any I have enjoyed in all my lab days. I don’t think I’m alone in wanting to enjoy such establishments without the pressing throng of my eleventy billion closest friends. As we discussed over an impressive Mexican dinner on our way back to Carpinteria, mid-week, mid-October is the perfect time to take in Magic Mountain and I’m not sure I’d return otherwise.

The next day we completed our mental gymnastics in the basics before we set out for our next field trip. On the way get haircuts, Keeper and Flight dropped the girls and me off in Santa Barbara at MOXI – The Wolf Museum of Exploration and Innovation – with the promise to collect us once they were shorn.

I had no idea what to expect, but MOXI is brilliantly laid out and perfect for engaging young minds with hands-on exhibits on all aspects of science. We started on the rooftop and worked our way down to the ground level.

The girls’ favorite exhibit on the roof was an enormous drum with a mallet on each side. Each mallet was wired to a heart rate sensor commonly used on exercise equipment. Firebolt and WoodSprite each took one side and they observed their heartbeats played out on the drum.

Unprompted, they decided to conduct an experiment. They wanted to see what exercising would do to their heart rates. They formulated a hypothesis (that was prompted) before running in place and doing jumping jacks before they rechecked their heart rates. Lo and behold, their heart rates increased just as they’d predicted. Basking in the success of their scientific experiment, we headed downstairs to further explore Newtonian Physics.

After a short discussion on the impact of increased mass on potential speed, Firebolt and WoodSprite built racecars. While they were engineering their rides, I was goaded into participating by one of the museum’s volunteers and put down my knitting to take part in construction efforts. Once we had all put the finishing touches on our creations, we raced them on the impressive track. A solid engineer in the making, Firebolt won the race. On both runs.

The next floor down had several arenas that married up science and art. The girls were thrilled to use color in unusual media (Rainbow Brite didn’t make it into Davista) – sure beats the heck out of colored pencils!

Sadly, the boys came to collect us too soon. After trying to register walking on gravel as quietly as they were able (which was not very), we went into the craft laboratory and the girls learned how to weave a bracelet. The entire family was the beneficiary of this particular craft as the girls were then too busy creating to pick at each other (or Keeper) on the ride back to Carpinteria.

Although I kept my eyes wide open on our return trip, I realized I never made the opportunity to do a realistic assessment of Psych’s portrayal of Santa Barbara. On our way back, we did stop at a local yarn store, where I lament not purchasing any new project work.  Sigh…  Based on our proximity to the beach (only steps away), we didn’t stray far from the immediate oceanfront to explore much of the town, aside from our school field trips. Looks like I’ll need to return to Santa Barbara proper at a future time to conduct research in earnest. One does what one must in the name of science…

Unsurprisingly (in retrospect only mind you), things improved quickly in Santa Barbara.  The middle motorhome in our tightly packed group of three departed, giving us a little breathing space.  We remembered that not having electrical or water hookups wasn’t such a big deal, particularly when the weather’s nice.  And did I mention we were right on the beach?!  Sand between the toes works wonders.  For what, you ask?  Yes, I answer.

Incidentally, we’ve learned that our limiting factor with dry camping (again, this assumes mild weather – if it were hot enough to require the a/c not to be miserable, it would be a different story) is tank levels.  Specifically our grey and black water tanks.  We’re able to be conscientious with both as technically we’re never really required to go to the bathroom inside, and we could wash dishes in a communal sink and/or use paper plates.  But in practice it just isn’t nice to tell a dancing, cross-legged Woodsprite that she has to grab the flashlight and hike out to the public pit toilet to poop.  So four or five days seems to be our dry camping limit before we have to find a place to dump the tanks & reset.  That also seems to be the point at which we get tired of firing up the generator in the morning and evening to charge everything that needs charged & re-juice the coach battery.  Fortunately our refrigerator runs on either electric power or propane, so our food stays cold & fresh regardless.  Very good to learn these things from experience.

Back to Carpinteria Beach though – we adapted quickly to an on-the-beach lifestyle.  Morning and evening walks down the coast, homeschool tasks completed in the Clam on the sand behind the RV, frequent dips in the water…

Carpinteria is known as a safe, family-oriented beach due to the long and shallow wave-breaking zone.  Though there is a surf spot there known as “Tar Pits” due to the formation of hardened, prehistoric tar on and just in from the beach about a half mile to the East of where we were, the waves never topped about two feet or so, which translated to chest high at most while wading.  My plans for surf lessons would need to wait.

On the other hand, Keeper turned his own corner there in a way that made my heart swell.  I previously mentioned his aversion to, or at least hesitation about body boarding due to prior forehead-grinding-in-sand experiences and his perception that he was seconds from a tragic drowning death.  I had tried to help him overcome that by going out into the water with him a few times, to no avail.   What ended up doing it for him was a girl (yes!).  OK, not entirely true, it was a girl and her brother, both of whom were near him in age.  Keeper and I had done a little pitch dark night swim the evening before, which had its own cool adventure aspect to it, and on the way back to the site we came across the two of them and a few other kids heading out to the beach.  Surprised to see us soaking wet, they asked about sharks.  I hadn’t seen them well enough in the dark to recognize them the next day, but evidently they recognized us.  I guess my answer that there were only a few dozen sharks around and the fact that we were wet while they were bundled against the chill made us memorable.  Or something.  At any rate, she and her brother had said hello to us the following day, and had been out riding the small waves for quite some time when Keeper suddenly grabbed the Boogie Board and said he was heading out there.  I throttled my excitement, but watched closely.  Turns out having kids your age, one of them of the opposite sex, body boarding with you is a much better motivator to learn than is having your annoying Dad telling you how you’re doing it wrong.

He was out in the waves for at least an hour, and by no more than halfway through he was catching waves easily and confidently.  His quote later will stick with me, both for its exuberance and for its confidence, which doesn’t always rear its head when Keeper’s trying new things.  He had expressed his intention to head out and catch a few more waves before sunset and I mentioned that they had gotten a little bigger with high tide and were breaking a bit steeper and closer to shore, making wipeouts a bit more likely.  His response, while tearing away from me toward the water, board in hand:  “I’m not wiping out, I’m going to catch them and I’m going to look AWESOME!”

Firebolt settled into a different groove in Carpinteria, though no less confident.  What she appears to have realized is that she’s not a swim-in-the-ocean girl.  It’s not entirely clear what she objects to, but tough to remove sand is at least a partial culprit.  No amount of cajoling gets her into the waves with us, but what I love is how calmly she rejects our pleadings.  She appears more 30-something than 8 when she patiently listens to all of us badgering her childishly, then replies “no thank you, I’d rather sit here and read.”  And read she does.  She is tearing through books and can’t get enough of them.  In fact, one of her more memorable recent quotes to me was: “Dad, I don’t think I want to be President anymore.” [This has been a previously stated goal]  “Oh yeah?  Why not?”  “Well, I really like to read and I don’t think Presidents read much.”

Go ahead, unpack THAT one.

I did explain to her that I think the best presidents do a ton of reading, which got her thinking about Abe Lincoln, so maybe her political career isn’t tanked just yet.

Woodsprite has found her bliss in the shallow area where the waves have already broken and are making haphazard patterns over the sand.  I showed her how to find sand crabs by looking for their antennae on a retreating wave and she often asks me to dig a few up so that she can check them out, but she hasn’t yet decided that digging them out for herself is a good idea.  She’s a fairly recent swimmer, so I won’t take her out in the actual waves unless she’s wearing a life vest.

She expressed an interest in “surfing” based, I think, on a kids’ book in which a singing cat goes to the beach and spends some time surfing double overhead waves (and still manages to stay dry!).  I took her with the boogie board into the whitewash area, which was only about ankle-shin deep.  On her first attempt — and by “attempt” I mean that I put her on the board and then pushed her when the remains of the wave swept through so that she could ride the whitewash the few yards into the shore — she rode it for a few feet but couldn’t quite stay balanced on it, then fell off onto the sand, only to have the water and sand continue to wash over her and the boogie board leash wrap around her neck as the board continued on without her.  It was far more gentle than it sounds, but hilarity did not ensue, and though she may pull a Keeper and turn the corner with board sports, it’s safe to say she’ll be sticking with chasing already-broken waves on foot for at least the near future.  She still loves that.

Keeper pulled another coming-of-age stunt by searching for and finding a place to hang the hammock inside a small clearing at the top of the dunes just outside the campsite, and then insisting he’d like to sleep there under the stars.  I let him know that he was essentially on the entire campground’s path to the beach, or at least right next to it, and in response he assured me that he’d have his knife, again.  Ah good, at least you can shiv the teenagers trying to sneak out in the dark.

He spent the entire night out again, and told us in the morning that he’d been semi-confronted by a group of what he assumed were kids at some point after we had fallen asleep.  He said that he heard the group approach, then get quieter and start whispering once they spotted him.  They didn’t seem to be moving and may have been doing some scheming, so he summoned up his deepest Peter Brady voice and boomed “Can I Help You??”  Satisfyingly, they scattered immediately.  He didn’t even have to pull out the pocket-knife.

On the second to last day, we opted to take advantage of the cheap Six Flags passes we had bought back in Maryland.  We had a Six Flags park (plus waterpark) right down the road from us there, and found that the season passes, if purchased ahead of time, cost about the same as a day in the park.  The park there isn’t much, but it’s almost never crowded, and a couple hours in the water park with the kids is a perfect antidote to the sticky Maryland summer.  At any rate, the passes entitle us to admission at any Six Flags park, and Magic Mountain just north of LA is pretty much their flagship.  My understanding is it’s the only park with more roller coasters than Cedar Point, so we felt like we had to make the comparison.  Plus it, like many things I’m exposing my family to in Southern California, figured heavily into my childhood.  Disneyland was for good clean fun, but Magic Mountain was where you went to get your mind scrambled.

Despite all the amusement park visits (we have Disneyland still on the docket), we’re still not really amusement park folk.  But Magic Mountain on an off day was worth the drive.  And free!  No lines, and at least double the roller coasters from back in the day.  We couldn’t even ride them all due to time, but that was fine – my head can only take so many and the girls were height-limited out of most of them.  Minds suitably scrambled, we drove back to Carpinteria at sunset to enjoy the beach once more that day.

Overall, I loved Carpinteria.  Despite the rough start, it turned into almost exactly the beach-front beginning to our Southern California stint that I was hoping for.  We hiked on the beach, I biked up and down the coast on the trails, we set up The Clam on the sand and spent the days in and out of the water and lolling on our beach towels.  As a bonus, we spent a little time in Santa Barbara proper and I was able to arrange a meet-up with an old college (and high school!) friend who is now a city councilman in SB and is living the good life there with his wife.  We had some wine and snacks and conversation on the crest of the dunes just after sunset while the kiddos played back in Davista.  Soooo Santa Barbara.