Seacliff (3)

So let’s say you’re an employee in a public school district, who has to complete a certain number of mandatory annual training modules online. Let’s also say those training modules are on things like blood borne pathogens, child abuse, bullying, sexual harassment, and teen suicide. Let’s assume those activities are not top items on your “fun” list, so it is completely understandable that you may have procrastinated doing them until the last possible minute, all in one sitting. Or, perhaps you were just waiting for the most cheerful setting imaginable before strapping in for 4 1/2 hours straight hours, rather than, say, take it on it bits and pieces over the past two months. If so, you are my people, and you and I spent a good chunk of our Saturday in immersive abuse land. But, we were at the beach, so things could have been worse.

Seacliff, as weird as it is to be just right there in the middle of so many beach goers, has rapidly become one of our favorite places. It could be the gentle and soothing sound of the nearby surf, or it could be that it is walking distance to ice cream. Or both. But it really is super fun.

We arrived just in time for a nice sunset and braved the nippy air for a walk to Marianne’s after dinner. I got thin mint and mandarin chocolate on a sugar cone. Richard got “spooky” orange cheesecake, which tastes like normal cheesecake. The weather was glorious all weekend and even though we were in the middle of the row of camping slots, we basked in the glorious views, made even better with a Caravan Mover spin.

Richard ditched my abuse sessions and went on a long bike ride. He says it was a superlative ride up San Jose Road and down Highland and Eureka Canyon Rd. He would do it backwards next time, he notes.

I settled in, swinging in my Nemo chair, protected from the sun by my new chair umbrella. That is a winning piece of camping equipment right there. It is just big enough and adjustable enough to keep my upper body shaded, making it perfect for working on a laptop, or reading a book, or napping, or watching depressing videos. The unfortunate part of my plan was that cell service, while mostly pretty good, was not quite good enough to handle sustained video streaming. So, what would have been 4 1/2 hours and done, turned into a marathon event of playing, freezing, sending me back to the start of the 20 min section, and making an already difficult ordeal take about twice as much time. It’s a good thing the surf was there to calm me down, and that every five minutes I was interrupted by strollers by, asking me about the roof. I can’t really complain, as this was a situation of my own creation. Plus, again, beach. So I should shut up.

You may notice more general scenery shots than usual, and that is because we are thinking about making a BFW without the W. I’ve been noodling on what to do with Dory2’s front wall. I had all kinds of pin maps and white boards and laminated photos on Dory1’s front wall, and I didn’t want to just move things over. I also verified that the white surface of the new fridge is, in fact, a dry erase surface. That is exciting for me in a way that most people probably cannot understand, but it does mean that I don’t need to put a white board on the front wall. I thought about decals and other maps, but my current idea is to put a giant peel and stick picture where a Lesser Front Window might be, so that we get a never ending beautiful view without the downsides of having a window there (see previous posts declaring our anti BFW stance). Some of these pictures are contenders, but then I got stuck in choice paralysis.

Sunday we dumped at New Brighton, like you do, and enjoyed the views from the day use area there too. It was a view filled weekend with a gazillion shore birds, a couple thousand “I think the roof goes down” arm waves, dozens of boats, a few seals, and several scoops of delicious ice cream.

Once home, I did finish off the mandated training videos. All I can say is, let’s be extra kind to our kids. It is depressingly hard to grow up these days. I’m glad I didn’t have to go through my teen years exposed to so much ugliness, with social media layered over the top of it all. How confusing it must be. Here’s to hoping the ones who are suffering can find something good and solid to hold onto through the rough patches. And let’s hope we can recognize the times we might be able to offer that for them. It’s hard. Hang in there.

Total miles: 84.4, 17.6 mpg. Hit same stop and go traffic on Hwy 1 about 5 miles from destination. That stretch takes a good 30 min to get through. Site C6, no hookups, but excellent solar. No dump; dump at New Brighton with credit card pay station. 5g service for both, but it was slower than when it hit LTE.