Spring Broke - Part One

Our original plan for Spring Break had been this: drive the Northern CA and Oregon coast to get up to Seattle, ideally corresponding with the birth of my sister's child. If our dates didn't work, a quick trip to get me to the closest airport was plan B. 

And then March happened, as it always does: a dangerous drop in the bank account and lots of expenses on the horizon including taxes and rafting season start-up costs. Living on a massage therapist's part time recession salary wasn't going to get us to where we needed to be, so we had to cancel. But break for the kids wasn't cancelled. When this began to be glaringly obvious on Sawyer's last Thursday of school, we began to talk about maybe going somewhere, just for a few days. 

I had already poutingly put my name back on the work schedule and was suffering with low grade depression: I love our life in Lotus and all the time it means we have with the kids and each other. But I also like some of my creature comforts: the gym being a particularly large expense (not that chocolate doesn't sing sweetly to me in my darkest hours). And the lifestyle we've chosen doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room in the finances for big wants like landscaping and my gardening and Tom's surfing and kayaking  loves. Not accruing debt is hugely important to us, as is making deposits into our retirement plans and the kids' college plans. And having a safety net. So April vacations are first on the scratch list. And it made me sad. Every March I question the choices I've made to not become a doctor, lawyer, marketing executive or Wall Street banker. And the poppies and lupin come out and salute me from the hillsides, the emerald of the spring grasses more tantalizing than the cold green of cash, and I am conflicted.

I had promised my sister and myself that I would be there for the birth of her child. Even without the loss of her husband in September this reigned a definite plan. The folks handling reservations where I work were ready for the last minute cancellations if need be. Now it looked like we'd be working a bit around the house and nursing our mild seasonal sadness while the kids complained of not having anything to do or anyone to do it with. So it was on Friday when we awoke and while making breakfast started throwing out ideas of where we could go for just a few days. And by 1 pm after three frantic hours of packing and campground searching and mapquesting we were on the road. Heading north. 

Chico has always appealed to me as a close vacation spot but no one else was hearing the call three hours in and so we continued to our northern pick: Humboldt County's beaches and redwood forests. 

I'd been once to the Redwoods, running a marathon with nothing to do for 26 miles but try to keep my sick and mildly hypothermic sister going the last 13 miles while staring at beautiful fricking tree after beautiful fricking tree. The beautiful part stuck with me, and the appeal of going further, just a little further down the road. We made it to a rest stop somewhere just before reaching the Trinity River for a dinner of cereal and a bike ride for the kids who were thrilled to be just exactly where they were while their mother tried to heave off her melancholy. We drove a kid's video length down the road and pulled in for a night of sleep at the Burnt Ranch National Forest Campground, really just a small depression in the side of the road but perfect for our needs. It's so lovely to just park and brush your teeth and tuck the children into their cozy bunkbeds and fall asleep not really knowing what you're surrounded by, just the promise of adventure readily accessible while still being cozy in your own little space.

When we woke up, the lushness of the forests this far north were a new adventure and we were quickly on the road. 

In Arcata a few hours later stopping for gas, a man approached my husband inquiring about the ARTA logo on our truck and saying he'd fought against the Stanislaus Dam decades earlier with a bunch of ARTA folks. They chatted and Tom thought to ask him for the insider's tip on camping and what to do and five minutes later we had an itinerary and a plan. The camping spot, Big Lagoon County Park, was one of the most gorgeous we've stayed at. And if the real Humboldt experience was one of the warm sunshine we were blessed with for three days, we would probably never have gone home. 

Big Lagoon is a huge, long lagoon separating our camping area from the crashing big wave pebble strewn beach lining the Oregon coast. The lagoon presented a perfect nature walk trail for children leading to the beach and an opportunity for the frigid spring splashing my kids are known for without the terrifying undertow of the ocean. The beach itself had wonderful rocks for collecting and a gorgeous view and the perfect soundtrack for sleeping. We spent a while exploring our beach and Tom went for a run, meaning to get to the ocean-side mouth of the lagoon and running for a straight half hour in one direction without seeming to make progress. The kids froze themselves in the lagoon, getting layer after layer of thier clothes soaking wet before removing them. We changed and  packed up to explore some of the beaches nearby we'd been told about. 

Camel Rock Beach was another children's paradise.  And a surfer's. And here was my husband with time, inclination, sunshine, head-high waves and no wetsuit or surfboard in access. He stood and stared at the waves, having his own Spring turmoil over toys and gear and money and lifestyle. It didn't take the kids long to soak themselves again in wonderful, warm puddles left over from the surd crashing onto the rock islands dotting the beach. When hypothermia began to threaten, we headed back, detouring through some fabulous caves in another rock island and cementing our need for camp and clothes and dinner. Tom and the kids dropped me at Agate beach and I spent the next hour running through the harder sand and walking through the soft sand, picking up gorgeous pebbles and beautiful, tiny driftwood sculptures. The angle of the sun was perfect, the roar of the waves, everything.  I stopped to ask an older couple if they knew what an agate looked like and they handed me a baggie with five or six lovely specimens to keep. When I arrived at camp, the kids were dressed and dinner was just about ready and all was well in the world.

S'mores would likely taste unbelievably terrible in your own kitchen, but something about the combination over a campfire, the most critical chef would have to adore. The kiddos rode their bikes around the campground, showing their complete and total exhaustion on the second lap, and we were off to bed. In the trailer after stories Tom or I will often tell the kids made up stories with characters they choose to join them in the adventures. Jordan has chosen one or more of the Strawberry Shortcake dolls for the last year or two, as well as one of her stuffed animals. Sawyer has had Diego come along lately. This trip I made the story a "To be Continued" every night, and sent them to sleep this night with the promise of heading to see the world's biggest trees and the supposed (in the story) birthplace of the two stuffed bears grandma had given them in real life. Tom played his guitar, I read, and we fell asleep to the wonderful sound of waves and the exhausted breathing of our children.