Nothing Says Summer Like a Day at the Beach, Any Time of Year

We had a brief heat wave a couple of weekends ago when Bay Area cities broke records, and then we descended back into wintry weather with cloudy skies, wind gusts, and temperatures that barely broke into the 60's and 70's. Even I agreed to turn on the heat the other day when the rest of the family got out of bed and started putting on parkas and two layers of sweatshirts over their pajamas.

We're in the middle of spring, and in Palo Alto, that means we should at least be getting a taste of summer. True the roses are in bloom, and the pollen count is up, but it's often been too cold to be outside without a jacket and we've had more clouds and rain than I can remember for this time of year. For a region that's been plagued by drought, this is good news, but there's a part of me that's still insists stubbornly that this is not exactly the merry month of May.

So I'm looking back with nostalgia at photos from a weekend we spent at the beach in the middle of April when we had a brief respite from rain and clouds. We had one perfect day on the coast in Carmel: the sun was out, the sky was a brilliant blue, and the kids felt warm enough to risk getting splashed by cold Pacific waves.

We started out by climbing along the rocks and tidal pools at the Point Lobos State Park Reserve. My youngest soon left me behind as he scrambled up sharp inclines like a mountain goat, reminding me of my own father's penchant for climbing rocks, and getting himself into perches overlooking waterfalls or ravines that were clearly out of bounds. “Dad, the ranger's coming,” I found myself yelling at him once when were in Yosemite, hoping it would scare him back down into safer territory.

There was no hope of that today. I hadn't seen a single park official anywhere, but one of the mothers who was with us, filled in that role, telling her kids not to follow mine out onto the rocks where a rogue wave could sweep them off. She was perfectly right to be concerned since her two boys were much younger than mine. My fifteen-year-old was keeping an eye on his adventuresome younger brother, and my husband was also looking out for them, when he wasn't concentrating on getting a perfect shot of the waves and the pelicans that kept sweeping across just above them in swift-moving arcs. I had sighted a playful sea otter with my binoculars and had no intention of going anywhere as long as it stayed in view.

Now that I'm on my third son and resigned to the fact that he's an intrepid climber, my attitude towards child safety has shifted considerably towards: “Don't ask, don't look.” I know the odds are that they will make it out of childhood with no more than scrapes and bruises (and so far one broken arm), and following them around telling them to be careful is just going to drive them towards steeper cliffs and more dangerous surf. As it turned out, my boys did move off the furthest rock about one minute before a wave swept over it, but my husband reassured me that they would just have been soaked (most likely).

From Springs to Mind

In search of safer beaches, we climbed up the trail towards China Beach, a protected cove with white sand that shines under turquoise waters as if you had suddenly found yourself in Jamaica, only with much, much colder water. There was no chance of playing in these waters, however, because the beach had been taken over by mother harbor seals who were still nursing their pups. We watched one pair emerge onto the beach and lumber up onto the sand, and then with the binoculars we began to discern at least four or five more pairs, and one pup who was old enough to be on her own. The young ones flopped and wriggled while their mothers occasionally batted them with a flipper as if to say, “Enough already. Can't you see I'm trying to take a nap?”

Tomas, my fifteen-year-old, was still determined to make it to beach where there were waves he could play in so we all piled back into our respective mini-vans and headed about a quarter mile north on Highway 1 to Monastery Beach, officially known as the Carmel River State Beach, and referred to by local divers as “Mortuary” Beach because just about every year there are fatalities due to rip tides, rogue waves, or divers who lose track of their depth.

The geology of beach is fascinating because as you look at the cliffs behind where the Carmelite monastery is located, you don't realize that you're on the edge of an enormous canyon, big enough to hold several Grand Canyons. The steep slope of the beach means that waves often crash directly onto the sand, particularly in the middle where the slope is steepest.

That didn't stop Tomas from playing in the freezing surf, keeping a watchful eye on the younger ones who ran up to the waves and then away from them cackling with glee. All of them got soaked eventually, but the cold and wet couldn't dampen the joy on their faces. With Tomas guarding them from behind and the rest of the adults watching them from above, we whiled away a perfect warm sunny afternoon as the tide came in and children ran shrieking from advancing waves, stopping only to refuel on cookies and grapes before they ran back for more and more.

From Springs to Mind

Thoughts of Spring

Thoughts of Spring

Okay, so it's a bit past the actual vernal equinox, but Spring never follows the calendar in my experience. It is that most capricious of seasons -- here one day, gone the next -- as if the weather can't make up its mind whether it wants to be blizzarding, blustery or merely gently breezy.

When I was growing up in Michigan, it seemed as if Spring only lasted about two days. We'd have the occasional unexpected snowstorm in April and then a few days when the crocuses peeped out and the lilacs bloomed, and suddenly by Memorial Day, the hot, humid days of summer were in full force.

In northern California where I lived for many years, Spring usually arrives in February with rain and wildflowers and a green so intense you'd think the hills behind Stanford University had been transported from the Emerald Isles. I used to live for those weeks, going outside with sinuses inflamed, sneezing, and with pounding temples, just to enjoy the greenery I knew would have disappeared by the summer dry season.

Here in the New Mexico Spring is more of a conundrum. It's the driest, windiest, and sometimes downright unpleasant season of the year, especially when the wind blows hard enough to kick up clouds of dust so large that cars turn on their headlights in the daytime.

It seems like a small miracle to see the small green leaves on the cottonwoods, the forsythia in golden abundance, and the lilacs starting to bloom when no rain has fallen for months, and the few thin clouds that pass overhead seem to mock us with moisture that remains tantalizingly out of reach.

Fortunately, I live in an area along the river, where families have enjoyed the right to take water from the Rio Grande through a maze of irrigation ditches for hundreds of years. It's the river that saves Spring here, generating a swath of green along its meandering path for miles and miles.

But I am determined to help things along as much as possible so I sow my wildflowers, and plant my first hardy perennials and water by hand until I finally see the ditch fill up and coordinate with neighbors when it's time to open the gates and let my backyard flood.

It's one of the great pleasures of my home that even though I'm technically inside the city limits, I feel as if I were still in the countryside. If I walk a few hundred yards along the irrigation ditch – I run into pigs, geese, ducks, chickens, and goats, as well as horses and fields of hay grown to support them.

Less than a mile away there's an organic farm that grows produce and fields of lavender. Across the road there's a field that when flooded attracts Canadian geese, sandhill cranes, and the occasional pheasant. If you want to encounter more exotic fowl, you just have to drive along another road to find a nearly suicidal flock of peahens and their resident peacock, who is much more cautious about dashing into the road in front of passing vehicles than his female counterparts. The speed limit there is 25 mph, but most people go a lot slower; no one wants to have to carry the body of a deceased peahen to its angry owner.

So for now, while we wait for the monsoon season to arrive and enjoy the windy but mild weather of April, I'll draw on the bounty of the Rio Grande and watch the slow greening of the high desert along its banks.