Bear box empty, and so is our summer home
That's the Pacific in our backyardCopyright 2008 Lydia Hinshaw
PESCADERO, CA -- Monday we saw egrets and pelicans for the first time in nearly five months.
Monday night we ate real, fresh seafood.
Yosemite is history.
This summer proved to be the most stressful of my four summers of seasonal work. The sheer volume of customers, the relentlessness of their questions, the tedium of driving in a 10-mile figure-eight seven times a day, the blandness of the food, all combined to leave us both exhausted and several pounds lighter as well.
Sunday was our last day of work. Monday we stuffed the Element to its roof, mailed home what wouldn't fit, turned in our uniforms and checked out of our housing.
By 9:30 we were rolling west, and Monday night found us in a campground along the Pacific Coast Highway. Our tent has a view of the Pacific. We can hear the faint bark of seals on the beach. We can smell the salt air, though it's usually overpowered by less pleasant smells produced by a dozen horses corralled just upwind of our campsite.
We had been craving seafood for months, and knew we could find it here. We ate at a placed called Duartes, which has been in business since 1894, and has gotten seafood down right.
For the next three days we will be chilling at the beach. This is a particularly quiet and pleasant stretch of coastline, one we've visited a couple of times before. Not far away is an oceanfront pasture where cattle graze, oblivious to the value of the real estate they're enjoying. There are public beaches every few miles, but no condos and very little traffic.
It should help cure what ails us.
Monday night we ate real, fresh seafood.
Yosemite is history.
This summer proved to be the most stressful of my four summers of seasonal work. The sheer volume of customers, the relentlessness of their questions, the tedium of driving in a 10-mile figure-eight seven times a day, the blandness of the food, all combined to leave us both exhausted and several pounds lighter as well.
Sunday was our last day of work. Monday we stuffed the Element to its roof, mailed home what wouldn't fit, turned in our uniforms and checked out of our housing.
By 9:30 we were rolling west, and Monday night found us in a campground along the Pacific Coast Highway. Our tent has a view of the Pacific. We can hear the faint bark of seals on the beach. We can smell the salt air, though it's usually overpowered by less pleasant smells produced by a dozen horses corralled just upwind of our campsite.
We had been craving seafood for months, and knew we could find it here. We ate at a placed called Duartes, which has been in business since 1894, and has gotten seafood down right.
For the next three days we will be chilling at the beach. This is a particularly quiet and pleasant stretch of coastline, one we've visited a couple of times before. Not far away is an oceanfront pasture where cattle graze, oblivious to the value of the real estate they're enjoying. There are public beaches every few miles, but no condos and very little traffic.
It should help cure what ails us.
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