Ah day 3.. we were underway now, really finding our groove. It takes a few days to get the crusties out, don’tchathink? To stop the mind from thinking about things before and after — to just be there. Before starting off, we had a walk on the cliffs by the ocean. Ada saw seals and pelicans off in the distance. We looked at various flowers, Hamid finding one, me another, Ada copying, telling us ‘stop mommy, daddy’ so she could show us another flower she found. We started driving. The early drive was amazing because we were really there…
We drove paralleling the Trinity River. With our new found routine, we stopped about two hours in, when Ada woke up. We found a shady tree and pulled off the highway where we could see the river down a pathway. Walking to the river, it was clear, fast moving, greenish-blue and beautiful. We stood at a sandy entry spot situated at a big eddy. Hamid took off his shoes & put his feet in & Ada was very curious about Daddy without his shoes. We saw butterflies, talked about the animals that might live at the river, and saw little gold sparkles in the sand under the water of the river — the first time any of us had seen ‘gold’ in a river, the pieces the size of a sand grain. We walked further down the river bend to stand on rocks over some big rapids. Hamid and I found ourselves talking about the best way down, to navigate and avoid the holes and swirly stuff, a throwback to our days in Oregon.. and the novice kayakers we once became.. eons ago. A love affair with the Pacific coast got us here so many years ago…
We did the pop-top/lawnchair thing for our lunch, feeling pretty proud of ourselves:
What's in the cooler?
Pickle eating a pickle and Papa Pickle too!
Yummy lunch..
Ahhh put your feet up...
But… the reason why we came this way was to go swimming in a lake! It had gotten pretty hot and dry, a big shift from the coast. The a/c in the VW worked okay but not well. Swimming!!! We built up the idea of going to a swimming with Ada (an attempted distracting conversation for the hour it took to get there) & Ada was excited (even though she didn’t know what swimming in a lake really was). We found our spot at Whiskeytown Lake, Oak Bottom Marina. The lake, beautiful. The area, a bit of a scene with a lot of boat, houseboat, recreation culture. But the beach was perfect for what we wanted – a good little sandy beach, to spend an hour and take a dip.
Ada was thrilled. We all were. We all went out to our knees… cold, brr!!! Hamid decided he wasn’t so sure his participation was fully necessary in the underwater, torso-submerged part, but after some cajoling and threats of future regrets, he dove in too. We sucked in air, laughed, splashed, and generally felt like we had won the lottery all around. Splash, splash, splash, splash, splash, splash… underwater, underwater, underwater… brr, brr, brr…and run, run, run…to the towels. We dried off on the beach pretty much 5 minutes after we went in. We spent the rest of the time: watching the (too tame) geese, digging with the (famous) plastic rake, and watching Ada wander the large perimeter of the beach.
Ada (and the second one Ada & Hamid) heading to the lake:
But.. as our day came to a close we were a bit sad. Our reserved campsite ended up being a paved parking with large RVs (and streetlights). We had no food for dinner. We cut our losses and headed to Redding. Wahhn wahhn… In the parking lot at the restaurant, and later at our hotel, we felt sad. It had just been so fun being in camping mode. How great it is to be insulated from the noise of life, hanging out with the ones you love. Only one more day.