Fort Bragg

Alisha and I just returned from a 3-day camping vacation to Fort Bragg. Many friends and family go camping there each summer during the same week to escape the 100+ degree summer heat and frolic in the mid-60's temperatures along the coast. Activities include things like hiking, kayaking, riding bikes, exploring tide pools, and visiting glass beach.

This year we missed out on the kayaking, but still got to do all of our most favored activities. Most everybody else goes for the entire week, but Alisha and I can only stand about 3 days of the camping "lifestyle" before our desire for a shower and comfortable, clean relaxation overtakes us. We rode bikes to glass beach, got ice cream at Cowlick's (twice) and watched the sunset each night. We explored a few tide pools across fields of mussels (about which we made many jokes like "look at these muscles!" and "there are muscles over here!"). We also discovered sea anemones, sea urchins, crabs, snails, and a handful of starfish (the smallest one we found is pictured below on the left).

 

One of my favorite things to do is hit rocks into the ocean with an old wooden bat. This practice began when I played little league growing up and lived on hilly land near Grass Valley. Since I wanted to practice batting but didn't have a bucket of balls or the desire to chase balls down a long hill, I hit rocks instead. I also had a border collie (named "Teke") who liked to sit down the hill and chase the rocks and catch them in her mouth. To hit rocks, I didn't want to mess up a bat, so I'd find the straightest, hardest stick I could (usually made of a pine branch), clean off the bark and smaller branches, and then use it as a bat. Sometimes I couldn't find a straight stick, so I'd end up with a curved one and I'd have to swing an inch or two above where the rock was in order to hit it. I'd practice hitting that way, just throwing up rocks and hitting them over and over again. After a while of hitting small rocks the size of a penny, it got much easier to hit something the size of a baseball. To this day I still like hitting rocks. It's a bonus to be able to hit rocks into the ocean. I'm not sure why, but there's just something special about it that makes it better than hitting into a field or down a hill.

Alisha pointed out that you can see the rock flying
in the daylight picture above

This year at Fort Bragg was also special to us because last year at this time was our final week with Roscoe. We still have many sweet and special memories of him that replay over again in my mind. I thank God that I am able to revisit Roscoe's life through my own memories and through the pictures (and blog) we have. Though we don't often mention it in prayers around other people, each day Alisha and I thank God for the time we had with Roscoe. The time God granted us with him has become a defining piece of who we are, having changed us permanently. I hit a few rocks into the ocean for our special little guy, prayed for him by the ocean at night, and know that he is still waiting for mommy and daddy to arrive at the doorstep of heaven. What a smile we'll see when we arrive!