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Wynded Words

~ Home of author Sarah Wynde

Category Archives: California

Adventure buddies

01 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by wyndes in Adventures, California

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

California, kayaking, Mad River, S

Kayaking on the Mad River
Kayaking on the Mad River. The views were incredible, but there wasn’t a ton of time to admire them. My eyes were usually on the water!

I told S recently that thinking of her as my former co-worker felt wrong, like it was a story missing many pieces. Once upon a time, we had cubicles down the row from one another, but that doesn’t really explain how we got here, 25+ years later. Even back then, though, we were travel buddies. When our company sent us to Hawaii, we visited the rain forest and went snorkeling at a black sand beach. When our company sent us to Lake Tahoe, we went horseback riding. When our boss needed to find out some information that she couldn’t get any other way (pre-internet!), we rented a car and drove to Death Valley. And when I knew I was going to be staying in Arcata for a while, of course I went looking for an adventure for us. I sent her a link to a full day of river kayaking via the HSU Center Activities and then said, “Maybe that’s too much?”

I think S is constitutionally incapable of saying no to an adventure. She said yes, we registered, and on Wednesday, the day after we got back from camping, we went to the first part of the class: learning how to get out of a kayak after you’ve turned it over. That class was held in the Arcata swimming pool and was a nice intro to the idea that maybe this was going to be a scarier adventure than I’d envisioned. If you’ve read my blog regularly for a few years, you know that I like kayaking, but that I am a cautious kayaker (as, in fact, I am cautious about everything.) Kayaking on the St. Johns, the slowest river in the US, is about my speed.

This was not that kind of kayaking. This was the kind of kayaking where you wear a wet suit and a helmet and a PFD (personal flotation device) and the kayak has a sleeve over the seat opening to prevent your boat from filling with water as you splash your way down a fast-flowing river. This was the kind of kayaking where you find your way into a safe eddy and pull over to consider the risks of the next stretch of water. This was the kind of kayaking where the instructors shout “paddle harder, paddle harder, paddle, paddle,” to keep you from running smack into hazards in the water.

It was exceedingly fun.

Also, as Suzanne and I agreed at dinner, way outside our comfort zones. But next time it will be less outside our comfort zones. I actually already called this morning to register us for another class in two weeks, but they were closed to celebrate Caesar Chavez Day, another reminder that I’m not in Florida anymore.

Meanwhile, my plans for this week include writing lots of words. April is CampNaNoWriMo, which I didn’t know until I saw that the Humboldt Writer’s Group had set up a camp. I never made it back to another of their meetings, largely because they happen on Sunday afternoons, which is S’s only guaranteed day off and so typically a busy day. But I am going to join their camp and work on turning April into a month like last November was. I’d express my doubts, but I’m not even going there: it’s going to happen. Time to get to it!

Edited to add: After I hit Publish, I was still thinking about kayaking. While it was exceedingly fun, it was also a certain amount of scary and a fair amount of discomfort and a lot of uncertainty. The plusses outweighed the minuses, but I don’t want to rewrite my history to exclude the hard stuff or make it seem easier than it was. Worth doing, going to do again, but the moment halfway through when I thought, “I am so ready to be done with this,” was just as real as the moment when I got through some rough water and thought, “YES! Made it!” and gave an exultant grin.

Liberty Glen Campground

19 Tuesday Feb 2019

Posted by wyndes in California, Campground, Travel

≈ 6 Comments

I have spent so long struggling to post my time-lapse sunrise that even though the quality loses everything I wanted to share, I’m still posting it. If you watch it very closely, in the bottom right corner, you might get a chance to see the sun sparkling on the water drops that covered the tree. In the moment, it was crazily magically beautiful. On the time-lapse… well, you can’t really see it. Maybe if you watch it in a very dark room, you might get a glimpse. Mostly, though, you’ll have to use your imagination and trust me that it really was gorgeous!

So! Moving on… I left Half Moon Bay on Friday morning and literally prayed on the drive into the city to find a parking place. Literally. Out loud. I apologized to the universe for asking for favors — I have a pretty strict policy of only praying in gratitude and appreciation and to ask for blessings for other people — but I was envisioning driving around and around in Serenity, finding only parking spots that would require parallel parking in tiny spaces. Instead, there was an open parking space — not parallel! — directly in front of my favorite dim sum bakery from decades ago. Yes, it felt like a miracle. A really nice minor miracle. I envisioned my guardian angel patting themself on the back in that pleasure and delight that you get when you find someone the perfect gift.

I parked… and then I did not go in for dim sum. I watched people going in and out, most of them taking packages of deliciousness to go… and I thought about how miserably sick gluten makes me. And then I thought about how much I love shrimp dumplings and pork siu mai. And then I thought about the sore throat and the aches and pains and the feeling of having so little energy that even standing up is an effort… And eventually my friend S arrived and we went down the street to Burma Superstar, currently the #8 restaurant in San Francisco according to Trip Advisor, and ate delicious gluten-free tea leaf salad and braised pork with coconut rice. I’m pretty sure that means I am never going to willingly eat gluten again. I don’t know how many times I’ve said that San Francisco dim sum would be the place/food that I would pay the price for, but apparently it’s not. Fortunately, lunch was delicious.

While we were eating, it hailed! I took a video but I’m not even going to make an attempt to post it, but here’s a picture from the window, including a little girl picking up pieces. Hail must be pretty amazing if you’re a San Francisco kid.

little girl picking up hail in San Francisco


After lunch, S and I went to Golden Gate Park and took Zelda for a good walk, and then I dropped S off sorta close to the de Young Museum and headed north across the Golden Gate Bridge. I did debate going to the Museum myself, but I wanted to get to my campground before dark and I didn’t want to get caught in traffic.

That was a really good call. The campground would have freaked me out after dark. It was remarkably isolated, considering it was in Sonoma. No cell service, no electricity, and a steep and winding road in lousy condition to narrow, hilly campsites. Also mostly deserted. On Friday afternoon, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to stay.

But it was gorgeous.

Serenity, alone on the hillside.
Zelda, eager to explore
Come on, Mom. Let’s explore!

Zelda had no such doubts. She was bouncy and excited, loving the weather — cold and sunny — and the smells. So we stayed through Sunday morning, with a mostly very quiet Saturday. I could have run the generator to give myself some electricity (I did manage to get it working again) if I’d wanted to use my computer or cook anything complicated, but instead I read books and ate leftovers. I wasn’t as tired as I’d been on my quiet day in Half Moon Bay, but it was nice to have a day where I didn’t have driving goals.

On Sunday, I headed off reasonably early, and finally finished my long drive. I arrived in Arcata around 3, pulled into S’s driveway and got comfortable. My journey lasted seventeen days, and over 3000 miles. Some parking lots, some driveways, some campgrounds — and I ought to count them up, but I spent a long time trying to get that video to work and I’m ready to move on to other things! But it was a good trip. I’ve driven across the country four times now, with timetables ranging from four days (not solo) to about eight weeks. Seventeen days was probably a little too fast — I’m really ready to not drive again and I was pretty tired by the end — but I think I managed a good balance of driving days and restful days.

Still, I’m glad to be here. Yesterday S didn’t have work, because of the holiday, so we did laundry, ate a big breakfast of bacon and eggs, went to the beach with the dogs (briefly, because it was cold!), and had pumpkin soup and salad for dinner. It was a lovely beginning to my lengthy visit. Today, I’m hoping to put on my yoga clothes and wander down the street to the nearest yoga studio — a five minute walk away — and go to my first yoga practice in over a year. But first, breakfast.

Edited to add: I can’t believe I forgot to include this rainbow. It felt like a beautiful welcome to California!

Half Moon Bay State Beach

15 Friday Feb 2019

Posted by wyndes in California, Campground, Travel

≈ 8 Comments

It’s very hard to take a picture of a mud puddle. At least one that demonstrates its depth and size without just looking like a dirty spot in the ground.

There is no way for Zelda to avoid this mud puddle when leaving the van. She doesn’t mind — she’s perfectly happy to wade in the water. But muddy dog + small van = sad dog mom.

Also, I am so tired that it took me three tries to spell the word “puddle.” I nearly went into that space where it stopped feeling like a real word. Puddle? Pubble? Pebble? What’s that thing called again?

Yeah, I’m guessing this is not going to be the most coherent blog post ever. But I’m currently at Half Moon Bay State Beach, which is a lovely — also, currently, extremely muddy — campground just south of San Francisco.

Not an impressionist painting, just a misty morning. It was rainbow weather, although I didn’t actually see any rainbows.

By about 2PM on Tuesday, Serenity’s tires were back in place and I was back on the road. I managed to get to Tehachapi in time to meet Carol (hi, Carol!) for dinner at Blue Ginger Pho, just one day late. Pho was just what I needed, because I was thoroughly cold-ish by then, tissues constantly in hand. I spent the night parked on Carol’s street and headed out early the next morning.

Wednesday was a grueling day. I had campground reservations that I’d paid for, so for the first time my schedule wasn’t flexible: I needed to reach Half Moon Bay by 5PM. I also needed to refill the propane. I’d filled it just a few days earlier, in Albuquerque, but it takes a fair amount of propane to keep a metal box warm when it’s 2 degrees outside and I didn’t want to chance needing it. And I needed to get the tires rechecked, to make sure the lug nuts weren’t working their way loose again. I also wanted to go to the grocery store. I managed all of it, except for the grocery store.

But when I woke up this morning, I proved completely unable to talk myself into doing anything else. Instead of going to the grocery store, I ate oatmeal for breakfast, lunch, and maybe for dinner, too. (I’ve got other options, but I’ve also got more oatmeal, and I haven’t had dinner yet.) Half Moon Bay is a charming town, lots of cute shops, just five minutes away. I did not explore it. My favorite sushi restaurant in the entire world is an hour down the coast, a beautiful drive. I did not go there. Instead, I hung out in the van, admired the sea gulls, and tried to keep Zelda out of the mud puddles on our brief walks.

Tomorrow, I’m going to briefly go into San Francisco. When I started planning this journey, I wanted to take a couple days and play in the city. But the closer I got, the more I stumbled over the reality of traveling with a large van and a small dog. Like every city, San Francisco has terrible parking. Once, when I was pregnant, I drove around my apartment for an hour trying to park and then gave up and drove to my brother’s house and spent the night there, because he had a driveway. So the sensible thing to do would be to leave the van outside the city and travel into the city on public transit. Except what would I do with Zelda? I’m not going to leave her alone in the van for that long. So I’m going to give San Francisco a try, but I’m not going to stress myself out dealing with city hassles.

A view from the van window. That’s ocean back there, but Z isn’t allowed on the beach.

Then one more weekend on the road, but by Monday — I hope! — I will be settling down in Arcata, ready to get back to writing the sequel to A Lonely Magic again. I tried today, even managed to pull off a few words, but I currently can’t spell puddle, so it’s not exactly gone well. But a previously written snippet made me laugh…

Fen sighed. “I wish I could turn into a bird.” 

An owl would be perfect. Silent flight, good night vision. She could glide away on spooky owl wings. No one would hear her or see her. She’d just be gone. 

“Why would you wish to do that?” Elfie asked, sounding puzzled. “Transformation is always fatal. The magic cannot sustain cellular life through the process of re-shaping and re-forming. If you became a bird, you would be a dead bird. This seems ill-advised.” 

Fen’s lips twitched. Elfie, so literal. 

A Precarious Balance


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Just catching the sunrise
A little patch of flowers in the wasteland.
Spring is on its way. Yay!
The second rainbow on the right is a little hard to see in the photo so look close.
Pre-Epcot breakfast, made by Frisbee. Total SuperHost. All the stars!

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