Waves For Miles
February 17th, 2019, was our 220th night in the Coffee House. Our little Sonic Lite travel trailer had been as far south as San Diego and was now on the move back north to Vancouver Island.
We drove from 8:30 am till about 2:30 pm, pulling into Morro Dunes RV Park in Morro Bay, California. Travel days are always exhausting, but this trip we drove through the craziness of LA only a week before the Academy Awards. Interstate 5 to the 405 was stressful. Then, the GPS wanted to take us on a secondary highway, which would have been very scenic if not for the road closure due to a construction project.
The site we were assigned at the RV park was small. It was a tight squeeze with our truck, so we had to park the F150 on a side road. In a 20 foot trailer, we often had to take spots that bigger units couldn't get into. We were surrounded by large rigs in Morro Dunes. In fact, our Coffee House would have fit nicely between the two slides of our neighbour's unit. We had grass all around us, and the beach was maybe two minutes away on foot.
Morro Bay is a coastal city north of Santa Barbara and Pismo Beach. It's known for Morro Rock, an ancient volcanic mound that is home to several types of birds, including cormorant, gulls, and peregrine falcons.
The first evening was so windy we only stayed out long enough to see the sunset. The beach stretched out for miles. We had plans to be there for a couple of weeks to recharge. That first week we explored the beach, the bay, the harbour, and the trail system around the other side of Morro Rock.
We could walk everywhere in Morro Bay without the noise of the freeway. We felt like we were on holiday, enjoying simple things in life like waffle cones filled with chocolate flake ice cream, and walking along the boardwalk to the pier to watch sea otters with their pups.
The wind gusted the rest of the week and rocked our little trailer. We still managed to get out and explore while the locals stayed bundled up inside. One afternoon we found a cute little Mexican restaurant and treated ourselves. Jamie had a beer, I had a margarita, and we feasted on tacos for dinner. We shared the El Churro for dessert. This was four churros stuffed into a mound of ice cream, and the base was crushed Oreos. We were incredibly stuffed and grateful we had a walk back to the beach to watch the sunset.
A change in location meant we again were triggered easily and angry often. We had to work through those challenges. Eating ice cream seemed the best way, but my inflamed joints reminded me that ice cream was not my friend. Jamie spent a lot of hours behind the lens capturing the waves and the blowing sand. I sat with my keyboard. We both had to think about our future. Time was pushing us to make a decision about where to live and pulling us to experience what the ocean had to offer. Less burden does not mean easy.