Beach Day

Today I find myself laying out on Marshall's Beach, near San Francisco, watching the waves crash along with smooth dark sand. I brought my new pop-up beach cabana ($20 on sale at Big 5), and backpacked in a picnic lunch, so I can spend a few hours out here enjoying the calm peacefulness of the Pacific Ocean.

I was actually never a beach person growing up. It was never my thing to just go and sit out on the beach and sun myself. We were more of mountain and camping people, owing to the fact that my parents' one family vacation a year was always to the PG&E campgrounds of Lake Valley Reservoir or Jackson Meadows.

In recent years I've gotten more in touch with the beach and ocean, and actually prefer it now to the mountains in some ways. Though usually I just go for walks along the beach and spend less than an hour there. It's just the highlight of a long day's walk, really.

Marshall's beach, incidentally, is a nice little out-of-the-way spot nestled between Golden Gate Bridge and Baker Beach, which is a more popular beach for sunbathers. This one is actually a very popular spot for photographers, but they come out right before the sunset usually. And actually, last time I was here there was a bit of nudity going on. You can read about that in a former blog post.

Today, it's nice and quiet out here, though more and more people are starting to arrive as the day wanes on. I think there's a total of seven people here right now, though and handful are currently coming down the stairs in this direction. That's how you get here, by taking a long path from the top of the cliffS down a series of wooden stairs and dirt passages through thick underbrush. Being a little less accessible than the surrounding areas makes it naturally a more secluded and peaceful spot.

So today I try and experiment. To see how well I enjoy just sitting out along the beach for hours watching the waves. I'm sure I can never get tired of the sound of the water crashing in. Makes me think that someday I should perhaps live by an ocean. Maybe that's where my retirement will be. In any case, as I said I backpacked in a lunch and some snacks, and brought a book to read, of which I've already completed another chapter since I've been here. "To Kill a Mockingbird" this time. I recently finished "Bluebeard" by Vonnegut.

I haven't actually done as much reading this year as I did last year, the last year being something of a banner year for me in that area. The downturn this year is mostly owing to the fact that now, Connor has gotten me into playing Minecraft. That seems to be just about all he wants to do, most of the time. And I have to admit, it's a fun and addicting game, inspiring quite a bit of creativity and problem-solving. So I'll still consider that a parenting win. But it also absorbs a lot of time.

In any case, today is for the beach, so here I sit with no video games and hardly any cell service. Roughing it, more or less. Guess I will take another stroll along the beach now, and get my feet wet.