Being in the trailer at night reminds me of being in a sailboat. Only once have I spent more than just a day on the water, a week or less in New Zealand on a twenty foot boat. There’s a lot less rocking in the trailer (although when Jordan moves around in the top bunk it gets going), but when the lights are out and we’re all snugged into our spaces, tucked into the darkness, we may as well be in the middle of an ocean.
Of course, on the boat we encountered foul weather (it was New Zealand, after all), and I remember how forlorn a place the ocean can feel when you’re hurling your guts up over the railing. Our only weak stomach on this trip is Sawyer’s. He’ll say “I don’t feel good,” and we all roll down our windows and encourage him to take deep breaths and show him how to do it – so really these episodes are breaks for all of us, as we all wind up feeling refreshed. On arrival here our first night Sawyer had fallen asleep in the car and was beside himself at being taken from the car where he slept as soundly as one can sleep in a pure vertical sit (given the lack of recline in the rear seats of the truck). Tucked into bed, his crying ended instantaneously, and with his deep characteristic sigh he was back asleep. I tucked Jordan in, and as is our custom, I sang her “Hush Little Baby” which she prefers to hear as “Hush Little Children” or tonight as “Hush, Little Jordan.” I think she loves the sleeping arrangements best of all as she likes proximity without full contact. She’s stopped getting up at night to go to the bathroom (which required full parental involvement to help with the bunked descent and ascent), and she’s fallen out of the bunk only once. She’s getting her sea legs.
We awoke to freezing temperatures but were quickly warmed on the wide open Doheny beach. A fence separates us from the campground entrance road which parallels a main street of Dana Point where traffic passes all night long, although not in any way that kept us awake or bothered. We’re always amazed by Southern CA camping, the proximity to freeways and the numbers of people. In coastal Cali, most of them are mobile and when it’s light there’s a constant flow of people on the other side of the fence, jogging, walking, biking, even some still rollerblading. And for good reason; although it was cold, it was gorgeous. Despite the more constricted campground, we were able to bike safely around to explore and were thrilled to find the beach bordering the western side of the campground was beautiful though sadly surfless. We pulled ourselves from our beach sitting reverie and headed to a coffee shop to come up with a plan for the day. The cousins were busy most of the day and so we were on our own. I had nursed a dream to go out to Catalina Island, but when we found it would cost $250 for the while family, we decided to expand and postpone that dream, planning a camping trip for our next trip south. I googled aquariums in southern CA as we hadn’t stopped at the Monterey Bay aquarium, and found that in Long Beach there was the Aquarium of the Pacific – and they had a shark exhibit, so we were in.
We decided to head north on the 1 again to find lunch and to check out the surf in Huntington Beach, our regular beach hangout when we visit the family in Cerritos. It provided again with good surf, and so the kids and I hung out on the beach, Sawyer once again on the dry sand and Jordan in the surf. Much more interesting and substantial shells on this beach but today Jordan said “I’m not interested in shell collecting today.” She didn’t last as long in the surf, either, the days of travelling and a small cold seeming to wear on her a bit more today. She sat on my lap to warm up so of course when we headed to the truck to change her clothes and take Austin for his walk it looked like two children and their poor incontinent mama. But it’s Southern CA, so anything goes, I suppose.
I love their enthusiasm for anything, these children of mine – for walking Austin until he poops, for calling home these many campgrounds, for visiting twelve different potties in a day. We’ve promised them sand toys and not delivered and they never complain, just reveling in the joys of sun and sand and surf and shells. We promised them a playground and they find perfect joy in making balance beams of concrete barriers, and wooden log posts walls.
We delivered on the aquarium after a Jamba Juice pit stop, and they loved that as well. Jordan and I touched every kind of animal in the petting pools, sting rays, manta rays, sharks, horseshoe crabs, sea anemones, sea cucumbers, starfish. I was surprised at how I had to really talk myself into touching these creatures small children were touching – the rays especially made me pause. The sharks felt like sandpaper on our fingertips, and I wanted to remember the reason why for dad, something like denta dermatitis where there skin is actually covered with small bumps made from the same material as teeth. The rays were smooth, a totally different feel. The largest ones had occasional white bumps and when I stroked one, it waved it’s fin, brushing my forearm and making me jump three feet in the air. I was proud of Jordan touching all of the animals despite her fear, but the dollar per animal was enough to make her persevere, even with the horseshoe crabs who feel just like the shells she readily collects. The starfish were no problem, something about the positive connotation of the shape and name made it no problem at all and she was happy to brag about her papa who, when presented with two beached starfish by a young girl on the beach despite his hesitancy to touch them, paddled them out to sea on his board. He touched the sharks and a smaller ray, but was well short of enthusiastic. Sawyer had no interest whatsoever in touching the creatures, but was more than happy to balance on the rim of the pools risking a full on swim with the 200 sharks in the petting pool.
By the time we left, the drive back to the campground made a planned stop for laundry and a visit with cousins ridiculous from the vantage of those needing sleep. We headed back and introduced our children to their first fast food, tacos and burritos from the Del Taco near the campground. Sleep was instantaneous. Back into the darkness of our trailer we sailed, adrift on the bliss of winter vacation.
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