Reluctant Creatures Abound!

I can't say I was 100% looking forward to this weekend's camping trip. The weather wasn't supposed to be that great - it was a long drive just to get to the coast - 5 hours - and I wasn't sure I wanted to be away camping in the rain...

I was so delighted I went! I was "off the grid" all weekend at Kalaloch (ka-lae-lock) in the Olympic National Park. Lara, Megan and I grilled fish, corn-on-the-cob, summer squashes, shrimps, potatoes; drank lots of wine; made super tasty s'mores; went on short hikes, took naps on a beach littered with glacier-flattened, smooth pebbles; skipped stones on creeks emptying into the ocean; found the roundest stones imaginable; watched the tides come in and saw the most tide pool reluctant creatures ever! (We saw sea stars, anemone, mussels, tube worms and small fish which out scored last summer when we only saw a dead headless seal.) The stars at night, when not fight puffy clouds, number in the billions. I got a touch of both wind and sun burn on my face while wearing long sleeve shirts and jeans. It was cool and sunny - a wonderful weekend of doing lots of nothing - eating, thinking, telling stories and being humbled by the ocean.