spring fling

we celebrated the beginning of spring with a little trip to the coast to show our baby the pacific ocean for the first time.

this pretty much sums up her response:

basically upon first sight she was impossibly, unbearably, over-the-moonly ecstatic.

she loved the sand: loved eating it, loved trying to crawl in it, loved burying her toes in it.

she loved the water, the waves: loved galloping through them with me, loved digging her hands and feet in, loved stepping through the froth with her careful tippy toes, squealing with delight. 

she even held a squiggly sand crab, much to her astonishment.

for two days we hung out along the point reyes national seashore: stinson beach, bolinas, olema, point reyes station. gardens, bookstores, pizza, sandy toes, poppies and lupine and iris and pickleweed.

lucy pretended to be a big girl out to dinner with her family at cafe reyes where we had delicious woodfired margherita pizza.

(she was good natured about having to eat pureed veggies instead)

lucy was a delightful road trip companion. she is getting better and better at being chill in her carseat (we've switched to a bigger one) and at playing with toys and looking at books while we drive, and at just generally being goofy and happy and delighted.

which was good because we got pretty familiar with the stretch of road between the scattered towns along the seashore. the long lagoon full of shorebirds and harbor seals, the rustic farmhouses, the bay laurels and oaks and moss, the jumbled wildflowers and green meadows and swampy wetlands.

we stayed in stinson beach at a place called the Sandpiper where I actually stayed with my family as a kid one year on Easter. i remember my parents and all five of us kids, my sister and i young teens, in one room, the entire floor covered with our stuff and my brothers' sleeping bags. the sign is the same but the place seemed a little fancier than i remember, maybe just because the soaps were organic and we had our own coffee maker :) in any case, we loved it, the perfect clean and comfortable get-away.

sunset walk to the beach and the market to buy ice cream.

we enjoyed the gas fireplace in our room even though it wasn't very cold. total indulgence.

it was convenient to have a nice tidy little kitcheonette because there are things about traveling with a hungry eight month old baby that you don't foresee. (well i don't...i sometimes feel like everyone else is better at this stuff, or there is some basic code of childrearing logic that i am not privy to) for example, where to get the warm water to mix with her oatmeal, and even more problematic, how to rinse her dish and very messy face after breakfast...we had everything we needed and she ate meals like a champ! (however, she still prefers to nurse for much of her nutrition)

my favorite thing about the Sandpiper was the lovely garden seating area where we took our morning coffee.

oh luscious scrumptious coastal foliage; i love how things grow so fervently in beachside places, and how hair curls and skin glows and the sun kisses your cheeks. it is my favorite type of climate.

back to point reyes station for more gallivanting, book buying, walk-taking, and coffee drinking.

a group of citizens came together to buy a corner plot of land and create a town commons. doesn't that make incredibly good sense?! Why don't all towns have this? I am sure the good ones do...but placerville is sadly lacking.

we headed out to limantour beach next, spotted a rambling wild coyote along the path, as well as seabirds, butterflies, saltgrass and wild strawberry.

first a snack, then let's get down to business...

the kid LOVES THE OCEAN.

she is a crab after all, born under the sign of cancer.

we ventured back inland by way of Mt. Tam where we stopped to hike a bit and take in the view, and later watched a motorcade of film crew vehicles with police escorts wind its way down the hill.

behind us, the city, the bridge, the bay, the ocean, the hills.

someone's getting verrrrryyyy sleeeeppppyyyy.....

my road trippers.

am i crazy or does it get harder and harder to adjust back to "normal" life as you get older, or maybe once you have children? i used to be all "filled with the glow" and refreshed, now i'm only tired and a bit grumpy having to get back to reality ;)

hope you all enjoyed a wonderful equinox...did anything special go down? and can i just say for the record, I LOVE SPRING.