Sand in the bathtub

Because we went to the beach today.

We drove from Tuscon AZ on Monday and stayed a very cold night in Joshua Tree National Park in So Cal. J Tree is a climbing destination, so it was hard for us to be there only a few hours and not climb. Well, okay, we did climb for about a half hour, but then we got really hungry because it was dinner time. Brian managed to do one boulder problem in that time even though he had been nursing a pretty bad cold for the three days we were in Tuscon.

But I digress.

Tuesday we drove up through the middle of CA and arrived in good time in Santa Cruz last night. We are staying in a Best Western about 1 mile from the beach. Today it actually got pretty warm–close to 80, so the beach was busy. I was hoping to sit on in the sand in jeans and a long sleeve as in years past, but had shorts and a tank top on and got a lot of sun. The boys chased waves for 2.5 hrs straight. I had to keep my eye on them because they were lost in the rhythm of the pounding water. The current kept lulling them further down the beach, and every once in a while I would have to coax them back. Man, did they have fun! Crazy kids…

We will be here for Brian to work until next Tuesday. On the weekend we will find climbing and camping somewhere close. And then it’s off to Utah for more climbing.

I feel like we haven’t been gone from home very long, but today marks three weeks from the day we left. We are on the downhill slope of our trip, and I know that it’s going to fly by. I imagine at some point I’ll be ready to come home, but I’m not there yet. I love being on the road. I’m speechless by all the stuff we have seen and done, all the places I have tried to imagine staying and making home. So many things that I can’t put into words here. Not yet. I will have to miss them first–the strange and hot dusty desert, the yellow and green rolling hills of middle CA, the salty humid air of the ocean–before I can understand what they mean to me. Or if they mean anything past being fun places to visit.