Day Five: Christmas Eve

We awoke to a blustery, grey day, which of course didn’t slow us down at all. The Morro Bay State Campground is a great one for kids to ride around on their bikes and scooters – which ours did in earnest. I rode with the kids (Sawyer is doing an amazing job on his bike) while Tom made coffee and breakfast and set up the trailer – not a bad deal as far as I was concerned! Jordan goes off on her own, talking to herself as she is almost always embroiled in some imaginary dram in her rich imagined world. Sawyer has his usual sublime countenance as he balances his massive helmeted head on his little shoulders and serenely pedals at an even pace around after his sister. As it had not yet started raining or storming, I went for a run with Austin around the campground and on the trail along the estuary (but not in the estuary, no dogs allowed).

We packed up and headed to Morro Rock – a long beach in the middle of town with a huge rock at it’s southern edge. It’s a surfer’s favorite beach with a huge dirt parking lot overlooking a half-mile of beach with a negligible incline. From the dunes to the breaking waves so from high tide to low tides a good thirty feet range is either covered or exposed – and when exposed there are a good many shells to collect. By the time we got there, the storm was coming in and it was incredibly windy, an ankle-high stream of fine sand coming off the dunes straight into the ocean. It was so cold it was nearly two minutes before Jordan’s pants were soaked to mid-thigh along with the sleeves of her sweater. To say Jordan isn’t a discerning shell collector – at least on this trip – is an understatement. She goes for pure volume.

Sawyer on the other hand is convinced every single wave is maliciously coming to get him. He prefers to play in the sanctity of the boulders bordering the parking lot. He climbs up and jumps off the rocks, a much more dangerous endeavor but not in the least frightening to him. I added another three miles to my workout going back and forth between Jordan in the surf going further and further north with the northwesterly winds, and Sawyer in the rocks on the south side of the beach. Tom had a great surf session as the storm was bringing a great swell with it.

Needless to say, afterwards the two most freezing (and wet) members of the family headed to the showers and we made lunch at the campsite and battened down the hatches in anticipation of the incoming storm. A lot of RV’s were pulling up stakes and heading out, but plenty of us were left at the campground. We headed for San Louis Obispo, a larger town 15 miles down the coast to get coffee, a quick internet hookup, and some last minute Christmas shopping in. As always seems to be the case, we ran into a former guide shopping with his father at the local toy store. While in line at the Old Navy (Jordan suddenly needs more pants in her wardrobe – who would’ve thunk it?) we had a few locals weigh in with their recommendations for dinner and wound up at an upscale Irish pub for a wonderful meal and went with full bellies back to the campground. Jordan and Sawyer usually snuggle up in our bed for stories or a video and then head into their little bunk beds and Tom and I jump in bed to read for a couple of hours before sleep – it’s been that cold and/or wet. With the kids inside we don’t usually want to get a fire going outside. Tonight Santa made a ruckus getting things ready in the trailer but somehow everyone slept through it.

The stockings were hung by the knobs of the closet and on the oven controls with care in hopes that St Nicholas’ reindeer would find the reindeer food the kids had sprinkled on the grass outside the trailer (oatmeal and two types of glitter – I helped the kids make it at Sawyer’s school). We set out milk and chocolates next to the mini tree we’d brought along. And went to bed with visions of sugarplums dancing in our heads.