Month: February 2023

You know how, when you are in the middle of something difficult, it’s really hard to see the big picture? You deal with problems as they come up, moving quickly onto the next, sometimes without any time to process the last thing before the new one demands your attention. You may only realize in retrospect that you were spread pretty thin. It has been a disorienting and discombobulating couple of weeks on the home project front. I don’t think either of us fully appreciated how much this has been impacting our psyches. Having a four day weekend in a new campground was a good way to pull back and zoom out, in order to get a clearer view of the Big Picture.

We got out fairly early on Friday, after erecting a number of makeshift privacy walls using sheets and blankets, all over the house. Our daughter has been completely displaced, both from her room and from our son’s former room, which she has been using ever since the storms made it rain inside and ruined her floor. I give her huge credit for dealing with all of that. Our son’s bedroom was left with lots of weird collected items, and smells, so she has had to make room in between a creepy skeleton Jack-in-a-box and random dumpster bound items that he at one time thought were cool. Meanwhile, we have been sleeping in Dory in the garage. Spread thin. The contractors have made some rather large mistakes in the past week, and on Thursday there was a blow up. Everyone regrouped and moved on, but I had an assignment that had to be taken care of during the drive up.

We had planned to drop Richard in Jenner so that he could get in a ride. He was to take Meyers Grade Road to Fort Ross Road and meet me in the parking area for Fort Ross. We adjusted the plan so that, after dropping him off, I went back to Bodega Bay for cell service so that I could call our contact at the tile store and choose different bathroom tile. That didn’t work because she was not available, so rather than wait around, I headed up the coast hoping there would be enough service at Fort Ross. It’s a beautiful drive and the sky was blue, so that ended up being therapeutic. Once I was there, I was in a better frame of mind to be able to shift off of the tile I had originally chosen, that is now out of stock. The tile person got a better version of me than the me that was awkwardly parked in a too small parking area, overlooking a cliff, back in Bodega Bay. There was enough service for a FaceTime, and I have chosen tiles that I think will be just as nice as the others.

Richard arrived not long after, and we went together to the campground, just a few more miles up the coast. This campground was the only remaining destination of all the Sonoma County Regional Parks that we had not stayed in. It is just a bit too far for a weekend, and you hit the “Roller Coaster,” a twenty mile stretch of Highway 1 that is nonstop twists and turns, with spectacular plummets on one side. It would be no fun to drive that in the dark, so I have saved this place for a time when we could travel in the daylight. It is just to the south of Salt Point, a small and lovely campground, with its own idyllic little trail right to a gorgeous cove. Of course, sunset viewing was on the schedule.

On Saturday, we set out to get in a good long hike. On Thursday, I stress binged an entire package of Lula’s Aloha Rocky Road chocolate, and was therefore six hundred calories over budget for the week. That was the first time, in over a year of being careful, where I went full throttle on a f*ck it, calories be damned. I promised myself that I would enter the damage in my calorie logging app after the fact, but I consciously did not look it up beforehand. It was delicious. If you’re going to stress binge, I highly recommend Lula’s Aloha Rocky Road.

We started from the campground and took the Canyon Loop Trail until we came to Dead End Trail. We were curious, and had calories to burn, so we tried it. Guess what. It ends in a dead end. It was pleasant enough, though pretty steep uphill most of the way. We didn’t get exactly all the way out to the end due to fallen trees, but we got the idea.

After coming back down, we continued the Canyon Loop with short side trip to see a historic school house. Apparently, this restored building was in use all the way until 1974, until it was moved to the park for preservation. The loop continues along a lovely river, but the lower bridge is out, so you have to cross on rocks or logs.

The next day we had a blow up of our own. With all the stress of remodeling, we had some stuff to work through, both short and longer term. Richard is nothing if not determined, stubborn you could say, when it comes to getting me out on hikes when I’m mad. He chose a loop a couple of miles up the highway, to something called the Pygmy Forest. It was not easy to find the trailhead, let alone a safe parking spot off the highway. Much of the trail was muddy and overgrown, and it was clear that trail cleanup crews have not quite gotten to this one following the big storms. Sometimes the trail turned into small streams, as runoff made its way downhill. The trudging fit the mood and we continued uphill, sometimes silent, sometimes wrestling over the next steps to get us back some semblance of normalcy at home. We came to the place where we were supposed to turn left and catch the Pygmy Forest loop, only to find a sign posted and yellow caution tape strung, indicating the trail was closed. Richard was super frustrated. I was ‘whatever,’ still firmly planted in my mood. We kept going forward to see what the other end of the trail was like, and there too, found the way barred. It was not going to be our day for miniature pygmy pine trees, so we moved on to the rest of the loop.

Eventually we came to a prairie, which was admittedly nice, despite the swampiness in some spots. Our spirits lifted a little, and then we came to yet another sign saying the trail ahead was closed for repairs. At that point, to turn around and go back would have been a lot more miles than we planned on, so we both entered “well how closed?” mode. After all, there was no yellow caution tape this time, and it was somewhat ambiguous which trail this sign was indicating. My negative mindset predicted we would be able to get all the way back down until the last ten feet, and then we would encounter something we could not traverse, and have to go five miles all the way back. Richard was not as pessimistic.

We encountered fallen tree after fallen tree, but each one was manageable. We didn’t know if the next obstacle would be passable, but we kept going. At a certain point, it became funny. “This trail is a f**king metaphor, isn’t it?” I mused. A muddy, uphill trek, with disappointment, and barriers thwarting us, and not at all what we had planned. But also, it became kind of exciting to see how bad the next obstacle was going to be, and whether we were going to be able to scramble through. In the end, Richard was right and we were able to make it the whole way back to the car. Along the trail, we talked through the things that were hard, and untangled some of the ways we were triggering each other. We made some feasible plans for how to recombobulate our home enough to get us all our bedrooms back. We acknowledged how hard this has been, and how we both have different stressors and different coping mechanisms, and these are sometimes at odds.

Back at the car, we both saved our Strava hike data and the app returned a picture of having walked a perfectly heart shaped trail. It WAS a damn metaphor! If the trail we intended to take had been open, it would not have ended up as a heart shape. It was only because we kept going, through the mud, and closed signs, and fallen trees, that we had walked a corny little map of love.

On that note, we got in some romantic strolls on the coastal bluffs, a spotting of an otter in the water, and another stunner of a sunset. When we got home, we enacted our Recombobulation Plan, and by the time we were ready for bed, we had livable bedrooms again, with brand new window shades. We have been incredibly lucky to be able to sleep in Dory for the past two weeks, but it is not like camping. For one thing, since we can’t dump the waste tanks, we don’t use the toilet. So when I need to pee in the middle of the night, I have to take a long, cold walk through the garage. By the time I’m back in bed, I’m wide awake and freezing cold. I have not been sleeping well. Our daughter is an intensely private person and it has been really hard on her not having a safe zone. But now we have things just a little bit more back to normal. We feel we can ride this out until the ADU is ready for her to move in. And at that point, life will be a whole lot easier for all of us.

But I also think, having trudged through the rough spots, it will be all the more appreciated when this is done. The problems have forced our paths toward a more loving understanding of each other. And the Big Picture at the end will not only look great, but feel better. Better because of the struggle it took to get there. Heart shaped.

Total miles: 112.9, 16.5 mpg, 5 hours 40 min with stop at Fort Ross to wait. Site 1. Double site. We spun around and it was totally private on that side. No hookups. Good dump, but only for reserved campers, $7. A little bit of solar. Pretty good service for Verizon, but not at all for ATT. Just up the coast there is a 5g tower with excellent service for both. Water in campground was not potable when we were there.

The theme of this post is about getting your ass kicked. In my case, it is the intentionally chosen decision to undergo remodeling that has turned me into a hot mess. In the case of poor Seacliff State Beach and (former) Campground, it was Mother Nature who dealt the fatal blow. I will not claim that I am as bad off as the pile of rubble now standing in place of one of the most popular campgrounds in all of California. But I have had to instigate an “Are you wearing shoes?” checkpoint with Richard before I leave the house every morning.

Funny story about the shoes. My Learning Center partner some months ago amused us by accidentally wearing her house slippers to school and not noticing until she was there. “Hahahaha!” we all laughed heartily. But then I noticed her slippers were really nice looking and asked where she got them. They became the Xmas present I bought myself, from Richard. Now, the remodeling at home has entered the really disruptive stage because they are painting, and installing windows, in the existing bedrooms. That means we can’t really sleep in there. Or, we could if we could get to the bed, but then we would be woken up by workers, or neighbors, staring at us through the very large new window that looks out at the street because the fence is down. Thank goodness we have Dory and that we put the money into the garage reframing so we can open her up inside. We have been sleeping in her for the past week, and I was pretty impressed at how well I was handling it. Then I showed up at school in my slippers.

On Friday afternoon, when I came home and started getting ready to hitch up, I found there had been a miscommunication about some of the painting and that freaked me out. The painting is probably the part of the remodeling project that I am most invested in, because color matters to me a lot. We seriously considered not going out so that I could talk directly to the painter, who was going to be there all weekend. But the Premium Donna in me took over because we had site 25. Site 25 is the one with the best view in Sunset, and it is very hard to reserve. So I couldn’t let it go. Once we were there, we reminded ourselves, for the hundredth time, it is (almost) always better to go out.

The weekend forecast called for rain and road construction on 680. We hit both, but it wasn’t too bad going southbound. It was cold and windy on arrival, but not so much to deter us from doing a CM spin for optimal morning view. It rained all night, and we woke to scattered showers and a breathtaking view. We both wanted to get out for a walk, rain or no, so we decided to engage in some curiosity indulgence in the form of disaster tourism.

I knew Seacliff had gotten battered, but I wasn’t sure from photos just how bad it was. We have reservations in May, and part of me wanted to believe it would be fixed by then. From what we saw, that would be a hard no. I can’t even imagine how they are going to rebuild that place, or even if they are going to choose to put a campground in the same location.

It’s funny to me that we were so fond of this campground, as it does not seem our speed, really. It is just a parking lot where you are slotted in next to big rigs and fully on display of all of the walkers, joggers, bikers, beachgoers, all up and down the strip. There is zero privacy, and if you choose to sit outside, you’re going to be chatting with passersby, answering questions about the Alto and whether the roof goes down. But we absolutely loved everything about the place. You can’t be any closer to the gentle surf, and it helps that Marianne’s Ice Cream is walking distance away. It is true camping on the beach, but I guess you are kind of tempting fate there. They say they have plans to rebuild it, but it will have to be completely reconstructed from scratch, starting with putting in a new, and hopefully more robust, sea wall. It was very very sad to see it in this state. But we cheered ourselves up by going to Marianne’s. They’re fine.

In addition to the loss of the campground and paved Day Use area, the old concrete ship, the SS Palo Alto, disintegrated a little more. There was a pier that used to go all the way out to it, but half of that washed away. I can’t imagine they will attempt to rebuild that. There are lots of incredibly expensive looking houses on the beach that also took a hit. Many of the homes had notices posted from the county, either saying the property was fully unsafe for use, or partially unsafe. Some homes lost windows, stairs, and decks, but the super fancy ones sitting on raised pillars also took damage. It’s hard to feel too much sadness over those because one imagines, with a property like that, they likely have the resources to survive. But there were more modest dwellings further south that were completely decimated, and that is a shame.

On Sunday, we packed up, like we do, and headed to New Brighton to dump waste tanks. One thing you should know about us: we are always prepared to stay out longer. Richard always packs extra breakfast and dinner, for at least one more night. We always carry extra medication, for at least another week. And Richard is always hopeful that one day, I will say yes when he asks if we can just not go home. This time, when he playfully asked if he should ask at the kiosk if there were free sites, I did not laugh him off. Instead, I asked him to look at my calendar to see if I had meetings or testing sessions scheduled. I did not. It is almost never that I have a Monday free of obligations. Things are stressful at work right now, with lots of transition planning for students moving on to middle school, and it is very difficult to get paperwork done at school. So Richard got to ask his favorite question at the kiosk and the answer came back as a yes, with premium sites available through the wait list, and there was no one on the wait list. So I did some fast texting to my colleagues, and my answer came back as a yes too.

Besides just extending the weekend fun, staying out gave me the opportunity to knock out some tedious paperwork for the rest of the afternoon, and the next morning. It also meant our daughter got another day without having to manage being displaced from her bedroom AND sharing space with us. Additionally, Richard had time to go on a bicycle mission while I was working and brought back eclairs from Gayle’s. The cherry on top was that going home on Monday instead of Sunday meant we got to avoid the 680 closure and crazy detours. It was a pretty slam dunk good decision all around. I am super lucky to have such wonderful colleagues, who are willing and able to shift and cover for me so I can take a spontaneous mental health day.

Another sunset, another romantic walk on the beach. New Brighton did not suffer nearly as much damage as its neighbor to the south. There were clearly slides, and there was a lot of debris on the beach. The cliffy trails going down from the Day Use to the beach looked battered, but were still clinging to the edge. Richard took a look at nearby Capitola, where much of their waterfront promenade had been closed down. Most of the businesses down by the water were boarded up and fenced off. And their beach also had tons of wood debris. The New Brighton campground fared comparatively very well.

Back at home now, we’re still sleeping in Dory for a couple of weeks. And our daughter is probably a month or so away from a move in date when she can truly have her own space. There is light at the end of the tunnel and we are just in the final push now. It will be awesome when it’s done. And in the meantime, we will get the f*ck out as much as we possibly can.

Total miles to Sunset: 93.5, 18.7 mpg, 2 hours 47 min. Site 25. Full solar, excellent 5g for ATT, LTE for Verizon. View of ocean. No dump. Total miles to New Brighton: 11 miles. Site 76, premium. Ocean view, full solar, excellent 5g for both. Good dump, pay $10 with credit card at dump.

Sunset

Seacliff

New Brighton

We were soooo close to not going out this weekend, but I’m soooo glad we did. It’s been kind of a stressful week, and rain was in the forecast for the whole weekend. Still, we are so habituated to packing and hitching, it was easier to go for it than not. Once we were on the road and under way, we could tell immediately it was a good call. Remodeling is tough and we really need those weekends out to talk through all of the niggling little decisions that have to be made. During the week, we are mostly too tired and in our own zones to want to do a deep dive into closet doors or open To Do lists. In the time it took to drive to Bodega Bay, we had most things sorted.

I brought some work, since I knew it was going to be raining a lot, and I knew I would feel better if I got through some of it. Richard theoretically had work, but instead, he napped and caught up on just resting. I leave in the mornings during the week, but I am aware that the workers begin pounding, sawing, grinding, hammering, and whatever else they are doing first thing in the morning, and they keep it up all day long. Richard and our daughter have to live through that.

I do not have all that much to report since we stayed indoory in Dory almost the whole time. We did go out for a nice moonlight walk on the beach and we did enjoy a nice dinner at the Fishetarian. Our site was amazing and we got to gaze at the ocean from inside. Outside was windy and periodically rainy, so we weren’t super motivated to emerge.

We spotted another Alto couple on our way back from dinner. We stopped and said hi through the car window and they knew us. Apparently, we met them back in Salt Lake City when they were on their maiden voyage. I even kind of remember that, and it was about four years ago. They were on their way early on Sunday so we didn’t get a chance to chat.

We both really loved the Jetty area of this campground. It’s hard to reserve, of course, especially the sites with ocean views, but well worth it. It’s always windy at Doran, and the Jetty seems to get the worst of it. There wasn’t anything too concerning for this weekend, so we used the Caravan Mover to spin for views, rather than nosing into the wind.

If you’re going to have a lazy, rainy weekend, then casually staring out at the ocean from inside your comfy heated zone is the way to do it!

Total miles: 81.9, 17.0 mpg, 2 hours 47 min. Site 113, incredible site. Excellent 5g for both. Great dump; pay $7 when you register. Walk right on to beach from site.