The Beach

While in high school my family lived in Port Hueneme, a beach community in Ventura County California. I say Port Hueneme because it sounds better, at least to me, than Oxnard, the larger community which essentially surrounds Port Hueneme. The first few months we lived in a house about 300 yards from the water, a true beach house. After that we moved inland, but in Port Hueneme you can't really get more than a few miles from the ocean.

So, I have an affinity for the ocean, gained from years living close to it and experiencing it on almost a daily basis.

I now live more than 100 miles from the ocean, at the northern end of California's San Joaquin valley, almost in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. It is pleasant, not as hot as Las Vegas, a place where I lived off and on more the first 30 years of my life. Still, it's not the beach. So every chance we get my wife and I go to the coast, sometimes or just a day to walk along the northern beach, other times a bit to the south where we can stay a few days and swim, kayak and actually get in the water without freezing to death.

A few years ago we took off for the coast, Santa Cruz, the weather report showed partially cloudy for the weekend. When we arrived Thursday afternoon the fog was already rolling in blocking out the sunset. Actually, we decided to do a bit of exploring and instead of driving straight over to the coast and then south as we had on previous trips we drove south first and the drove west to the coast. As we expected we had clear sunny weather for the trip southward. When we turned west we drove through some redwoods and then over a small range of coastal mountains. As we reached the top of the mountains we could see some low hanging clouds to the west. We no sooner began our descent to the coast and we encountered a quickly thickening blanket of fog. By the time we reached the bottom of the mountains we were engulfed in fog so thick we were unable to see more than a few feet in front of us. The change was quite drastic, like walking through a doorway to another room.

We found our way to the coastal highway and drove the short distance north to Santa Cruz and our room for the weekend. As we drove we prepared ourselves for an overcast weekend at the beach. By the time we arrived at our room we had convinced ourselves that even with heavy fog we could have a fun time on the beach.

Despite the voiced optimism when I went to bed Thursday night I tried to prepare myself for a heavy blanket of fog when I woke up the next morning. Waking Friday morning I was pleasantly surprised to see that the sun was out. I had to smile, it seems whenever we, my wife and I, come to this beach we have good weather. Last time we were here one of the neighbors, a permanent resident, told me how the entire week before we got here it had been foggy and cold everyday. We got here and the weather was clear, warm and great for the beach.

I teased Tom, the neighbor, that next time the weather’s real bad just call me and I’ll bring the good weather back down with me.