Darcy And The Sea

We are in the midst of a great holiday weekend. We started with a parade in neighboring Brookings, OR, and associated festivities tied to the Azalea Festival on Saturday. We all had a good time and then Michael went to softball practice. Today, it was warm right from the get-go, so Darcy and I walked to a playground while Michael slept in. Then we packed up a picnic and headed inland where it got as warm as 77 with glorious sun. We hiked a short loop trail to see the Darlingtonia (pitcher plants) in all their wild glory and then hit another botanical trail along the Rough and Ready River. There's a picnic table at the end of the trail overlooking the river and that's where we ate. Then we drove home, with a detour towards Happy Camp. Darcy fell asleep and one minute later, we were in snow! Lots of snow! When we got home, Michael went off to another softball practice and Darcy and I went to the beach. Where she ran and ran and ran and ran and ran and ran and ... you get the idea. For an hour.

The ocean was incredibly calm, almost flat, so it was a much less anxious visit to the beach than it often is. Darcy chased the seagulls and the waves, and I chased her.

As you can see, especially in the first picture, she had a lot of fun. I did, too, in part because of the lack of waves. I picked up pretty rocks with a plan to make them into a craft project for our family reunion in July. There are such gorgeous stones on our beaches, but I feel like I need a reason to collect them.

And just in case you didn't notice, we were in the ocean, the redwoods, the serpentine fens (where the pitcher plants live), and the snowy mountains of the Siskiyou National Forest, all in about seven hours.