Centerville Beach

It was sunny yesterday, so we went to the beach. Going to the beach on a sunny day in Eureka is a whole different concept from going to beach back home on a sunny day. As we left the hotel, I shivered and asked Toby how this could be called a “warm day.” He said when you live up here, you just learn to think of this as warm. To me it felt like something right out of November. But the sun was shining and if you could find a spot out of the icy breeze, it did feel nice. It certainly made everything look nicer.

The funny thing about the beach here is that nobody has “beach front property”. They do, but they just let their cows roam on it, or it’s parkland. It’s not like down south where the houses squeeze in so tight, you can have a conversation with your neighbors right through the wall. Eureka is a harbor town and the harbor is so big you have to drive quite a ways out into the country to get to the beach. And when you do, it’s usually so windswept by weather, it’s not anywhere you want to spread out a towel and read a book.

I was surprised how pleasant it actually was though, once we started walking on the sand. The sand was so warm! I just wanted to lay down on it like it was a heated floor. But then I forgot all about the sand when I saw the smooth polished rocks along the shore.

I’m such a sucker for rocks! I love rocks. I always have. Ever since I was a kid I’ve had collections. Right up into my teens, I had a little shelf in my closet with various rocks labeled with the names of places where I had collected them from. Later as an adult, I started keeping jars of rocks but that got to be too much clutter so now I just keep them in my plants and in the little space in my car by the seat lever. (I asked Toby what that space is called and he said the “knick-knack depression” (!).) Anyway, I’m kind of a nut about rocks. Toby thinks it’s really silly and stupid. Maybe it is. People have told me there’s some “I Love Lucy” episode about just such a hobby but I haven’t seen it. I try to keep the rock collecting to a minimum but it sure does make the hiking around in the outdoors more fun.

Toby gave me a rock collecting minimum this trip. I wasn’t allowed to take any sort of bag or container to the beach. I could only bring back what I could carry, which wasn’t much since I had to carry my shoes and on the way back a yellow jacket chased me all the way to the car. Oh well, today we are going to Agate Beach and I’ll find lots of rocks there.