Marsbarn Designs...

One more fine day

It seems hard to believe that the summer
is over. *Poof* We are back to our regularly
scheduled program.

I mean, we were just there, right?  In vacation land,
and now here we a week into another year of school,
and volunteering, and alarm clocks, and school lunches.

And the choices.  Here we are making the choices.
Do I do this, or that, or the other thing?
What are the commitments I make for this year?
How much at school, how much at home, what kind
of work?

Of course, there is also the learning and the growing,
and without the work, we don't appreciate the time 
off.  But still,  another day at the beach sounds
awfully Fine, right about now.  And yes, that's "Fine" with a capital "F".

Back to the now

We're home now.
Well, we've been home for almost two weeks.

It was such a nice vacation. Everything we'd wanted it to be.  When we got back home,  we had a week at home before Big E had to return to work.
It was a lovely week without our normal obligations.

But now, Big E is back to work, I am back in the midst
of sewing for money, math tutoring, and Taekwon Do.
Hello regular life, it's nice to be back. 

This is how I would spend every day, if I could

Our daily routine at the beach reads like this:

Rise, dress, breakfast, and then walk on the beach.
Whatever fills the rest of the day is secondary, for me. 

We walk and look at the rocks, shells, and fossils that
have washed ashore in the night.  Some mornings we
find driftwood, debris, and seaweed.  This year we
found many different types of Gooseneck barnacles.

 

We also saw an unusual number of hermit crabs on the beach (instead of in the tide pools).

There were a number of tiny shells this year. Little works of art.

And, the find of the trip.  I think it's a type of weasel,
perhaps a martin?

Summer Road trip: two weeks at the beach

After arriving at the beach house, we settled down 
for some quiet time. 

No TV, no DVD's, no phone, no computer, no internet.

Lots of books, games, and time.

We walked the beach every morning and saw lots of 
moods and weather. 

The weather changed regularly.  Some mornings brought
rain with warm sun in the afternoon. Some mornings were
clear, with rain and wind in the afternoon. 

A few days were sun all the way through.

We did have a few adventures away from "our" beach,
but really the days were blessedly relaxed and quiet.

The only regrettable part was that NayNay had to leave
us in the first week at the beach.  We were so sad to
see her go.  Next year, perhaps, we can keep her longer. 

Summer Road trip: the last leg

The drive from Coos Bay to Neskowin covers a section of coast that Big E and I visited often in the fabled "Time Before Children".

We stopped briefly at the Umpqua River Lighthouse.
Big E had plans, and we didn't want to wait for a tour,
so we just cruised through the museum before continuing
our northward path.

As we drove, we talked about the historical bridges and 
shared stories of previous adventures we'd had on this
section of the coast.  Naynay was delighted to hear tales
about our Dad eating a pound of fudge in Depot Bay or
jumping logs in a river.  

We drove into old town Florence for a quick look around
and lunch.  They were having their Saturday outdoor
market, so we looked at the stalls before settling on
a restaurant.

After lunch (and a quick swing through two fabric shops,  
we drove to Big E's must-see location.

Sutton Creek is an area that Big E and I have hiked
many times over the past twenty years.  It had been
at least 4 years since our last visit, and we were 
intrigued by the changes that had happened in that time.

This area used to be just river (wide and shallow) and
sand dunes, with just tufts of grass and a few willow
bushes, but this time the river was deeper and more
narrow and the greenery has increased dramatically.

I was still a lovely place to hike, and full of wildlife.
Big E found bear tracks and we saw lots of scat from
smaller creatures.  

But this trip, we did no wading.  The wide ankle deep 
water was now knee or thigh deep, and the wind was
too chilly to get that wet.  It was a beautiful day
for a hike.

After our hike, we thought we'd drive for a bit, but then
we came upon another favorite spot from the old days.

Bob's Beach.  Or Bob Creek Wayside, as it is more 
officially known, is a rocky beach with tide pools.

What initially started as a "lets just get out and look"
turned into 90 minutes of exploration and fun.  We
had to drag ourselves back to the car.

This was one of the few places that the girls wished 
we'd had more time for.

 Sweetheart G listed this beach as her number one place
she'd like to return to from the places we visited on our
road trip.

Little e was a bit groggy for this stop. Since we had 
planned to drive for a while, and she'd already been
sick once that day, we had dosed her with dramamine.

 I stayed close to her, and she still had a marvelous time.
Can you see the faces in this rock she found?

And then we did drive.  There were a few additional
stops for fabric and for coffee and carmel corn
(you know, the necessary stops. The ones a doctor would
give you a note for), but our adventures were done for
the day.  The girls were (shockingly) tired, and we
had a destination on the horizon.

We arrived at the beach house (our rented home for the
next two weeks) in plenty of time for dinner.  

I have to say that this trip, when I think about it,
was magical.  The distance we traveled felt like nothing.
There was no point where I felt like we'd been driving
for days, instead we just appeared at our destination
as if by magic.  Poof! We are here.

Our car, Sparkly Blue, was a trooper as well.  I spent
much of this trip in the backseat keeping Little e
company, and I have to say that it was quite
comfortable, even with three people in the backseat.

Summer Road trip: Brookings, OR to Coos bay, OR

On Friday morning, I made lunches in our
little kitchen before we packed up the car.  
We were a bit slow to leave town, and visited
a book store and a fabric store before we began
to meander northward.

We stopped a mile north of Brookings at Harris
Beach. We explored and then ate our lunch in the
lea of a giant rock. (I have no photos of Harris Beach.
There was quite a bit of dry sand being whipped about,
and I didn't want to risk the camera.) 

 Our next stop of the day was to explore Battle Rock.

It was a beautiful day.  Just gorgeous.

California may have been hot, but the southern Oregon
coast was windy. The girls had a lot a fun feeling
the buffeting power of the winds.

Sweet G and I walked the beach around Battle Rock,
while Big E, Little e, and NayNay climbed the rock.

The winds kept them from being able to go out on the 
ocean most side of the rock, but they still enjoyed the
adventure of it.  NayNay listed the climb as one of her
most favorite parts of the trip afterward.

This was another one of those times when the girls
asked to ride for a bit in the car.  We made our way
to Bandon, where I did a bit of fabric shopping before
walking on the pier.

This was the scene of the only serious trauma of our trip.
If you look closely at the photo above, you will see that
Little L (Little e's most prized elephant stuffy) is wearing pants. In about five minutes, those pants will be gone, torn
off by the wind and sent to parts unknown.  Poor
Little e cried and cried, but those pants could not be
found.  Little L made the rest of our trip pants-less.

Once Little e had recovered enough, we at our dinner
at a lovely Thai restaurant.  

After dinner, we drove from Bandon to Coos Bay.  I went
for a walk while Big E and the girls swam in the pool.   
This was our last night in a motel.  The next day we
would drive from Coos Bay to our rented Neskowin
beach house.  

Summer Road trip: Endor and Victoriana

Thursday morning found us in Fortuna, CA.
In researching the trip, I had read about a lovely grove
of redwoods located east of Fortuna that I wanted to visit.  

The Cheatham Grove is part of the VanDuzen County park.
The grove is carpeted with oxalis and tall ferns, the trails
were clear and well maintained  so the poison oak was 
easy to avoid.  

It also happens to be where parts of the speederbike
chase was filmed for Return of the Jedi.  With the park
being a bit off out of the way, we had it to ourselves.

What could possibly top off an old growth redwood 
grove that you have all to yourself?

Finding that there's a river to explore next to the grove.

We spent several hours in the redwoods and the river
before we piled back into the car to find lunch.

Ferndale, CA is located north and west of Fortuna.  It 
was an easy drive through farm land from Cheatham
Grove.  

It's a lovingly preserved Victorian town with (as we 
discovered) a great pizza restaurant.  We lunched, 
visited the mercantile for old fashioned candies,
and did a bit of shopping.

Ferndale is also home to a Kinetic Sculpture museum,
they have an annual race (42 miles over three days)
which includes water, land, and air events.

After playing and exploring, we actually heard the girls
say, "Can't we just drive for a bit?", so we did.  We
traveled back to HWY 101 and continued north.

Our next stop was our first beach beach stop of the trip. 

This particular beach is one we've visited before.
It has agates and skipping stones galore.

We couldn't resist another chance to walk in the 
redwoods, so we made another stop to see The Big Tree.

Then we gave into the girls' pleas and did some more
driving. (Honestly.)  We arrived in Brookings, OR at dinner
time, unpacked, and headed out for a fish and chips 
dinner.  The best part of dinner?  Hushpuppies instead
of fries!  Yum!

Our Brookings motel did not have a pool (which Big E
and the girls really missed), but it did have a kitchen
and a private bedroom for Big E and I (which I liked).
If I had the trip to plan again, I would find a place with
a pool. 

Summer road trip: the slow meander

We began the northward leg of our road trip 
the way I think most trips should begin:
with freshly made donuts. 

The first leg of our trip (from Marin county to Fortuna, CA)
was hot, so we drove for a bit until with just a few
necessary stops... like for donuts in Hopland.  Yum.
Donuts.

From Hopland we continued on Highway 101 through
Mendocino County.  Naynay remarked on how strange 
it was that 101 was only two lane here, when it was
an 8 lane highway near her home.  It was interesting
to watch the highway gain and loose lanes and traffic
as we followed it northward in the next 5 days of travel.

Our next stop was Willits, another small town with a
local museum.  This museum, the Mendocino County
Museum,  was more polished than Weed's, which means
you can't touch anything, the lighting is poor to protect
the artifacts, and the displays were protected by
glass and velvet ropes.  The museum contained
an amazing array of horse drawn vehicles.  Everything
from the largest freight wagon I've ever seen
(think semi trailer in length) with 6' tall wheels,
to surreys with fringe on top.   We learned all manner
of trivia during our perusal, for example Sea Biscuit
was buried in Willits, and Winston Churchill spent the night
there in 1926 as he travelled from Seattle to San Francisco.

After a stop at a well stocked used book store and lunch 
at an eclectic Thai restaurant (BLT anyone?), we hopped
back into the car and tried to drive out of the heat.
Even the redwood groves we traveled through were hot,
so we settled into the car and listened to a book on tape. 

Arriving in Fortuna was lovely, we stepped out of the car
into cool breezes.  We unpacked the car, and after a 
quick swim, walked to the Eel River Brewery for dinner.
I know, a motel with a pool and within walking
distance of a good, organic micro brewery! It was a
lovely way to end a day of driving. 

Summer Road trip: Fourth of July

We spent the Fourth of July with my family, and they
took us to the Marin County Fair. 

The fair was hot.  Really hot.  Little e rode a couple
of rides, but I preferred the animal tents and the indoor
events.

The art was amazing, but the best part of the fair
(I think we all agreed on this) was the Chinese acrobats.
My dad got into line early for us, and we were able to
sit in the front row.  We could see inside the costumes,
and hear the troop signaling each other.  It was just
magical.

We shared a funnel cake (YUM!!)  and some freshly made
lemonade before retiring home for some rest.

It was a sweet and relaxing Fourth, but the heat was a 
bit much.  

After a couple of days of visiting and shopping,
we started on the second part of our road trip.
We added another member to our party, my sister
Nay-Nay, also know as Auntie E.  She is Sweet G's
age, and having her accompany us was one of the really special parts of this summer's vacation. 

 

Summer road trip, starting with going back

For this year's summer vacation, we decided on a grander style of road trip.  One of those trips where time is left to explore and wander at will.

The over all plan was to drive to the bay area in two days,
spend three days visiting with family followed by a
leisurely four day drive up the coastal highway to
Neskowin, OR.  To top off the road trip, we had rented 
a beach house for two weeks of beach walking, eating, 
and TV free, computer free relaxation.

Our first stop heading south was in Oakland, Oregon. 
Big E had stories of Christmas tree hunting in Oakland
from his childhood to share, as well as stories of he 
and I visiting in the Time Before Children.  The old 
downtown core has been preserved, and we had a 
nice lunch at Tolly's, a refurbished soda parlor.

We stopped in a lot of old downtowns in small towns
during our trip.  I love seeing the details in the old
brick buildings.  We toured the first of our small town
museums in Oakland.  It was a clean and well organized
affair with well detailed personal stories of the town's
past. 

After lunch, we detoured briefly through Roseburg, and 
still made it to our evening destination in Ashland with
time for a swim in the hotel pool before our dinner date
with Auntie T and Uncle Fozzy.

Auntie T and Uncle Fozzy were a real treat.  We ate
pizza and talked and talked.  The first day of driving
was our longest day (4 1/2 hrs), and spending time
with such fun company really made the day.

Our second day of driving started out hot.
We are not a family that thrives in heat, and
Little e, who suffers from car sickness, is especially
heat sensitive.  We had planned on lots of stops and
detours to little towns, but honestly it was too hot.

We crossed the border into California,
and watched the temperature increase as we headed
south.  When we were just north of Weed, CA, 
Little e started feeling poorly.  We drove into the
Weed's main drag and looked for somewhere to
for our girl to regain her car health.  There's not
a lot open on a Sunday, so Big E just parked the
car, and Little e and I started walking down
the hot, dry, main drag. We passed two blocks
of closed, largely empty storefronts, and then
we saw it... the local museum located one block
over, and amazingly, it was open. 

Little e ran back to the car, bouncing with
excitement.  "A museum, we found a museum."

The museum is not a lot to look at from the outside,
but inside resides a collection of locally gathered
items from the past 150 years.  Weed was a lumber
town, in its heyday.  The payroll books* and the inn's
ledger are both held in trust by the museum. While
I poured over the payroll records from 1915 and Big E
talked to the curator, the girls ranged ahead only 
to race back to us full of excitement.

The curator was so tickled with the girls' excitment
that he let the them climb up onto the fully restored
engine from the 30's.  It is a beautiful piece of 
equipment.

Then, when we admired the fully restored mail coach
he let the girls climb on board. He even demonstrated
the leather strap shocks by rocking the coach up and
down with the girls bouncing about inside.

With so much to look at and learn about, it was only
the dire need for lunch that pushed us onward.
We drove onto in Redding for lunch, and then continued
south.  With temperatures in the 100's,  we did not
do our normal exploring.  Instead, we drove straight on
to Bay area.  Our stop is Weed was a major source
or delight for the rest of the day. 

 

 

* In the payroll book, each employee was listed by name,
and then occupation. Their rate of pay per day was listed,
as well as the number of days work in the month.
Then the deductions were listed. Each employee donated
$1 per month to the hospital, room and board if used,
and their purchases at the company's mercantile.
The curator said that you could buy anything you
wanted at the mercantile, except a car. Interestingly,
the person who made the most money (on the page
I looked at) was the engineer, but he also was the
person who spent the most ($90!) at the company
store.  In the end, he took home the same amount as
many of the base laborers.