Revisiting the Seaside of my Youth

-continued from "Oregon Adventure: Tarzan-style"

I hadn't been to Seaside, Oregon, since I was a newlywed, which was fifteen years ago.  My husband and I were fresh from college then and liked to take our playful new puppy, Samson, to the beach to play with other dogs and romp in the water.  Growing up in Alaska, I rarely visited real beaches with sand and surf, so our expeditions to Seaside and Canon Beach were cherished times.

My husband and Samson in 1999 at the Oregon coast.
(Rest in peace, good boy)

Fast forward to 2013.  On our last day visiting with the kids' grandparents near Portland, we hopped in the car and headed west to Seaside to let the kids run and frolic at the shore.  As soon as the young ones scampered off to the sea the adults set up our chairs, zipped up our collars, and hunkered down against the cold ocean wind for the afternoon.  Have I gotten old, or what?

Our Seaside bunker on the beach.

Grandma Shelley is stylish even when she's bundled in a beach towel.

I put the kids to work digging in our umbrella for a wind-block.

Seaside hadn't changed much since I was a nineteen-year-old in love, though I honestly didn't remember much about the town.  I saw a few kids riding beach tricycles on the hard sand and that brought back memories of my brother and I doing the same thing two years before I even met my husband.  My family and I visited the iconic beach town during a road trip that delivered me to my first year of college outside Alaska.  My destination was Eastern Oregon University (back then it was Eastern Oregon State College) in La Grande, Oregon, and I was just seventeen.  Even though I was technically a sophomore, my mom, being a mom, wanted to escort me to my new digs and make sure I was settled safely in the dorms.  Being an Alaskan, my mom turned the excuse to leave Alaska into a vacation.  We drove from Seattle, where we bought my college car, a baby-blue 1991 Chevy Caprice Classic, to the coast of Oregon and then cut East toward La Grande.  It was at EOU that I fatefully met my betrothed.

Me, my brother, and my Dad on the Seaside Boardwalk in 1996
(Mom is taking the picture)

Fast forward, again, to the present day.  On this trip to Seaside, I was escorting my own child on an extended vacation to explore the world outside of Alaska.  We had already spent almost nine weeks with my sister-in-law, traveling from her home base in Redding, California, to various summer-y destinations.  Our short jaunt to Seaside was our last chance to feel the sand in our toes and the salty ocean wind on our cheeks.  In just five days we would be flying back home to the giant peninsula called Alaska, where there are no good beaches.

The ocean has a tractor beam effect on people, especially kids.

One last beach adventure for these cousins before my son and I head back to Alaska.

I still feel like there's some of that eager young girl in me who walked this beach 17 years ago.

Still finding treasures.

With our departure from California paradise looming ahead, I let go of all my worries and observed the world around me with a purely aesthetic focus.  I banished thoughts, plans, logic, needs, or anticipations.  The landscape entered my eyes like images through the viewfinder of a camera lens.  I took mental pictures galore (and a few real pictures) and felt at ease.  It was how I must have felt when I faced this same sea as a young girl.  I was unencumbered by the heft and detail of adulthood - of motherhood and wifehood - and simply floated on the current of now.  I observed my son and was happy to be alive.

The Best Things in Life are Free

-continued from “Making Memories at Monterey Bay Aquarium”

Santa Cruz Boardwalk Beach.

My sister-in-law and I promised our kids that we’d spend an entire day at the beach.  After all, it was the reason we’d driven 300 miles south to Monterey Bay.  We woke on our third morning in the yurt, at Mount Madonna County Park, ate oatmeal with dried fruit and packed the car for our final full day in Santa Cruz.  We decided to return to the Boardwalk Beach, mainly because we knew right where the bathrooms were, but also because we liked it.  I also liked that it had the option of getting an order of sweet potato fries, if I really had a hankering.  All temptations aside, though, we hoped to get through this last day on the cheap.

My wallet was positively wasted away after the previous two days at the Boardwalk and aquarium.  It was as useless as an empty chip bag.  Don’t get me wrong; I didn’t regret a single dollar spent, because they bought us access to some fantastic experiences (well, maybe those five on the deep-fried peanut butter and jelly pastry).  Today, however, I hoped to make the most of the food we still had left in the yurt and the natural wonders of the ocean shore.  My hopes were not disappointed (and I didn’t even need the sweet potato fries).

Our squatter's camp on the beach, in front of the Boardwalk.

The moment we dropped all our gear onto the fine golden sands of the Santa Cruz Boardwalk Beach, the children skittered off like butterflies to their favorite flowers.  The girls went in search of washed up treasures, again, and my son began digging a hole, again.  My sister-in-law and I set up camp and settled into our chairs, comforted by their fascinations and the promise of a beautiful day at the beach.

The wind was constant and cold, as it had been on our prior day at the Boardwalk.  But, today, I chose my clothes wisely: long pants, shirt, sweater, insulated jacket, and a hat.  Even still, we had to stake our two large beach umbrellas into the sand as a wind barrier, which helped tremendously.  The rest of the afternoon floated by like a daydream.  We read our books; she, Anita Shreve’s The Pilot's Wife, and I, Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert. 

Periodically, we gazed out at the children romping, skipping, digging, finding, playing, building, and laughing.  I can’t adequately express the contentment I felt watching my son with his cousins, all of them happy and innocent in the world, following their little hearts’ desires from moment to moment.  They were absolutely free, like birds let loose from their cages.  I could detach from my mother role for a time and look at my boy as his own person, observe his playfulness, his ingenuity, his bursts of physical energy, and I felt I could know him better.  Like a spy gathering reconnaissance on her subject, I studied him.  He exuded spontaneity alternating with single-mindedness.  When he worked on his hole-to-nowhere, he was in his own world.  When the girls joined him, he included them easily, seamlessly.  As quick as a thought, he would jump out of his hole and run to the ocean.  He enjoyed the feel of all-out sprinting in brief bursts.  Then he stood ankle-deep in the surf, staring out at the sea, contemplating some unknown idea for just a minute before running back to resume his ‘beach engineering’.  The whole day went on like this: mom’s reading and observing our children or the landscape, kids…being kids.  Until everyone got hungry.

 

My niece made a Seaweed jumprope.

Sometimes, a girl needs a hole, too.

You're never too old to dig a hole at the beach (see gray-haired boy in the background).

The girl's created a Mer-man, with six-pack abs!

I offered to fix our lunch, partly because I needed a break from the beach wind, so I retreated to the Boardwalk parking lot and set up the Coleman stove and put the kettle on to boil.  It was a bit odd to set up a camp stove on the asphalt between two cars , attempting to be discreet, and prep our MRE-type meals with the tailgate open.  People kept stopping to ask if I was leaving. I waved them on and went back to looking busy by rearranging our picnic basket and waiting for the water to boil.  The small bit of embarrassment was worth it in the end.  We had hot buffalo chicken and southwest fajita filled tortillas right on the beach.  The warmth in our tummies fueled us for a couple more hours.

 

Buffalo-chicken with avocado...pretty good eats at the beach.

At the end of the day, my oldest niece and my son decided to take brand-new boogie boards out for a try in the waves.  The kids had gradually gotten wetter throughout the afternoon, playing chicken with the incoming waves and sometimes losing.  Getting fully submersed was the logical next step.  The waves crested perfectly just off shore and, after a little coaching, they got the hang of jumping just ahead of the curl and coasting on its turbulent momentum into the beach.  The strong undertow of the surf turned each wave brown with sand, and the kids too, but they reveled in their new game.  Their smiles drooped when we told them it was time to go home.

There ARE two kids in this wave.  Or, there was.

The sandy surf spits them out.

At last, they got the hang of it.

We packed up our wet, sandy kids and things and departed the beach just prior to sunset.  I felt full; not of nourishment in my stomach, but full of satisfying experience, of kids’ smiles.  They rode in the car in silence, lulled into a contented stupor by the day’s beach-y activities like eating too much turkey at Thanksgiving dinner.  That kind of fullness can be a rare thing, but it is especially rare and beautiful when it is had for free. What’s more, I got the very best thing, which is ALWAYS free, and that was the gift of seeing my child as himself.  His joy, his ideas, his movement, played out on a sandy stage in time – it cost me nothing and yet was a precious treasure.  Given space and access to the wonders of nature, I viewed his personality let loose, the choices he made with his own freedom, and it filled me with life.

This memory is a keeper.

Luxury Yurt Camping at Mount Madonna

It's an unwritten rule that if you vacation in California, you must go to the beach.  It just seems like the right thing to do.

I had been on vacation in California for five weeks and still hadn't seen the ocean.  It was time.  My summer hostess (sister-in-law) decided she'd like to take a beach trip somewhere new and more beach-y than her usual spot in the Coastal Redwoods near Crescent city.  After agonizing (mostly on my part) over the logistics and the cost, we opted to take an excursion to Santa Cruz because she had never been.  In an amazing bit of sleuthing, she managed to secure us a yurt at the Mount Madonna county campground, mid-way between Santa Cruz and Monterey.  It was the perfect solution to save money and do a bit more camping without having to drive her monstrous dually pick-up and the travel trailer.  We packed the Honda Pilot to the gills with food, sleeping bags, blankets, beach paraphernalia, clothes, things to keep the kids busy in the car, and ourselves.  This was to be our final big overnight adventure of the summer and we planned to make the most of it!

Hope we got everything.

Halfway to Santa Cruz, as we entered the metropolis of the San Francisco Bay area, my sister-in-law took us on a detour. Somehow, in all that freeway and city mess, she recognized that she was in the vicinity of the world Jelly Belly headquarters.  Within minutes we pulled into the parking lot and told the kids to get out and behold where we were.  Smiles slowly creeped up their faces.  This was a new experience for my son and I.  We all walked into the massive building, which was decked out in bright jelly bean colors, and we got into line for a tour of the factory.  For a Sunday, the place was surprisingly packed with tourists, but we eventually received our mandatory Jelly Belly paper hats and joined a tour group.  We spent the next hour being led through the silent factory (machines don't run on the weekends), watching shorts films about the history of the jelly bean, Ronald Reagan's favorite flavor, and the development of Jelly Belly's rise to candy fame.  I won't say too much because I don't want to spoil it for you.  As tours go, it won't win any awards, but they did give out free samples.

Detour!  A tasty way to stretch our legs.

Jelly bean art.  Really.

Jelly Belly centers awaiting their candy shell.

Finished beans drying.

Ice cream shop flavors.

At the end of the tour, we descended on the gift shop and selected our take-away treats for the road.  I'll be honest that the options were a bit overwhelming.  Our final choices included chocolate covered fruit flavors, a kids pack with mystery flavors, a bag of 'belly flops' (irregular beans of all flavors), and a jelly bean game called Beanboozled.  The game makes you spin an arrow on a colored dial.  Then you eat a single bean of your selected color, but there's a catch: each color may be one of two different flavors.  One flavor is yummy and the other is decidedly not.  You don't know which one you've got until your chew.  It's like Russian Roulette for your tastebuds.  Some of the not-so-yummy flavors include skunk, earwax, soap, and earthworm.  The stakes are high if you're squeamish.  Will you get coconut or babywipes?  As the tour explained, Jelly Belly has teams of researchers who work diligently to correctly mimic the tastes of each of their flavors, using natural ingredients whenever possible.  I can only assume that their philosophy extends to these 'beanboozled' varieties, right?  I'll just let that thought simmer for a bit.

Jelly bean overstimulation?

There are seriously a lot of choices.

What would you need to get paid to become a taste-tester for these?

 For a fun challenge, each of us went to the sample bar and selected at least one nasty flavored bean to try.  I really think mine was the nastiest.  While I've never eaten a real centipede, the bean that claims to be flavored like one unveiled at least three layers of pungent grossness that melted in my mouth like rancid meat and turned my breath to something horrible.  Next to that wretchedness, toothpaste flavor would have been welcomed.

This is the look of a dog food flavored jelly bean.

Yellow: Chili Mango (so-so).  White: Birthday Cake (yum).  Orange: Centipede (totally nasty).

A couple hours after leaving the jelly bean factory, we were winding through coastal redwoods toward our campground at Mount Madonna.  It was situated at the top of Hecker Pass, with San Jose to the East and Watsonville and the Ocean to the West.  I admit to feeling some trepidation as we pulled into the campground and searched for the yurt we would be calling home for the next four nights.  I have slept in a yurt a couple times before and knew they could be quite nice, but it all depended on their level of upkeep. This was a first for my sister-in-law, but she was optimistic. Quite frankly, I was a bit worried that we'd be sleeping in a filthy, spider-infested hovel, but I hoped for the best.  I'm grateful to say that my worries were for nothing.  Our 24-ft super-sized yurt sat at the far end of a delightful neighborhood of clean, well-maintained, taupe-colored yurts with private wrap-around decks.  The inside of ours had three bunk beds with regular (vinyl-covered) mattresses and a full-sized picnic table with benches.  I breathed a sigh of relief at its near-spotlessness.  It was better than I could have hoped for.

Hard to get much more idyllic than this.

Our spacious 10-person yurt was the perfect affordable accommodation.

Morning mist hung in the Redwood canopy.

Mount Madonna is a haven for people and animals alike.

We loved our fantastic yurt village.

We made ourselves at home, visited the equally clean and amenable bathrooms and showers nearby (with real flush toilets and sinks), and started prepping for dinner.  Another first on this trip revolved around our food.  In all the extensive camping my sister-in-law has done, she never ate MRE-style freeze-dried camping meals.  She decided she wanted to give it a go, mostly because she liked the idea of not having dishes to clean.  So, we loaded up on meal packs like Mac 'n Cheese, Curry and Vegetables, and Blueberry Cheesecake from the Sportsmen's Warehouse back in Redding.  Her first choice that night in the yurt was Mountain House Chicken and Rice loaded into flour tortillas.  Mine was Turkey Tetrazini with rice chips on the side.  We supplemented with fresh fruits and veggies brought from home and it felt like a feast!  We even had Starbuck's Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate as an added treat.  Speaking from experience, though, avoid the egg breakfasts.  They just aren't the same as the real thing. The only caveat to the brilliance of this food plan was the amount of water that had to be boiled to reconstitute our meals, plus more for tea and hot cocoa.  The trusty Coleman propane stove and teapot arrangement did its job, but required up to a half hour to get the water boiling, especially if there was breeze.  For anyone wanting to take this route, I suggest investing in a JetBoil, which will heat your water in just a couple minutes.

Sounds good...but they don't all taste good.

The temperature at that elevation, sheltered by the redwoods, was at least 20 degrees cooler than in Redding.  By the time dusk settled, we were wearing all the layers we had and were snuggling into our beds for extra warmth.  Even with two blankets and a comforter on me, my feet refused to get warm.  Fearing a cold and sleepless night, I invited my hot-blooded son to share the full-sized mattress with me if he promised to try and keep his knees and elbows to himself.  His extra sleeping bag layer and fully-functioning circulatory system kept us toasty all night.  We all drifted to sleep in the pitch darkness of our perfectly faux-rustic accommodations with full bellies, peace of mind, and joyful anticipation for our trip to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk the next day.

Mother's Day Mini-Vacation

Traveling is a passion of mine that makes my life feel worthwhile.  My favorite is when I visit places I've never been before.  I love the discovery of it.  But discovery can also come from traveling to a familiar place with new people.

For Mother's Day this year, I drove my favorite people (husband and son) down to Homer to spend the weekend with friends.  The Homer I speak of is the little town where I spent last summer being a Naturalist at the Wynn Nature Center.  It was my first full-time job after graduating from college, and the first time I ever spent more than a week away from both of my favorite people.  I blogged about it, so you can relive it with me here anytime.  The friends I speak of are the wonderful people who gave me refuge in their home during that summer.  I really think their hospitality was the reason I was able to enjoy those twelve weeks away from home.  So, I was more than excited to take them up on their request to bring my family down to visit.

We decided right away that this trip would be all about the food, not to lessen the importance of the people, but what is a social gathering without food anyway? It was a coincidence that Mother's Day happened to fall on the weekend we planned to visit, but luckily my mom grabbed a friend and decided to mini-vacation with us.  That ensured my ability to share a much-needed respite with my mommy, AND I avoided daughter guilt.

Delectables at "The Moose is Loose" bakery.

The great part about this trip was that I could share the town and people I had come to love with my husband, since he never made it down to visit me last summer.  I tried to avoid overloading him with stories like, "That's the cafe where I ate breakfast once," or "I saw a moose there at that corner one time," or "I got my groceries at that Safeway."  Instead, I drove by a selection of favorite eateries, galleries, and memorable locations, which I made sure to point out so he had a reference for where I spent my time, and then we visited a few of them together based on our mutual interests.  I find this is better than trying to recreate an exact experience, because it rarely works out the same on the second go round.

A familiar place becomes new when you share it with someone else.

Case in point was our trip to the beach at low tide.

Low tide is perfect for skipping ocean-smoothed stones.

 Last summer I had a glorious tide pool adventure during a very low minus tide over the July 4th weekend.  I saw a dozen sea stars,  a jelly, and a bajillion anemones.  

Searching for low-tide treasures.

A minus tide brings out all kinds of critters, like this small murder of crows.

 On this trip, even though it was a minus tide, it was only barely low enough to reveal a couple anemones and one muddy sea star.  Plus, many of us had water boots that were too low to allow much wading and my mom's hip began to bother her from walking over the soft sand.

Anemones buried in the sand can be hard to spot because of their camouflaged tentacles.

There's a tube worm peeking out of the armpit of this sea star!

My Mom.

Accidentally had the camera zoomed in on this self-portrait.

Ah well.  I counted the lone sea star sighting, a couple sandy anemones, and a tiny hermit crab as successful discoveries and was happy that everyone else was satisfied with it.  I let the rest of the trip evolve organically and all went swimmingly.

My hubby found a new mug at the home studio of his
favorite ceramic artist, Paul Dungan.

Some of the potter's glazes.

My fellow Naturalist from the Wynn Nature Center is spending
this summer serving local wine from Bear Creek Winery.  Yum!

This weekend was also Homer's Shorebird Festival.

A young black bear spotted from my friend's porch during breakfast!

And, as stated earlier, food brought us together with friends and provided the perfect thread of indulgence throughout our trip.

My dear friends and hosts.

Coconut Kale and Quinoa salad made by me!

Beautiful Seafood Chowder made by my beautiful hostess.

My son ordered oysters for the first time at Two Sisters Cafe.

 This trip was truly a wonderful gift for my Mother's Day. It even included a handwritten card from my son, that made me feel like maybe I'm doing a decent job of being his mommy, and a silver sea star necklace from the big guy.  All in all, it was a delightful weekend shared with friends and family that broke the normal routine and reminded that all things can be new again.

After fourteen years, it's amazing how we can still find new things to enjoy together.