day 2--china beach

we were all super cold during the night. heather and i woke up at the same time. she opened a slit in the tent to peek out at the world.
















i got up to go to the washroom and to read my scriptures. i pulled my duvet with me and sat in my camping chair with my feet up on the picnic table reading my scrips. after a while heather joined me.



















when sarita finally got up she was grumpy/unfriendly as she can be in the mornings. she rejected heather's attempt to photograph her.













meanwhile heather was taking on the appearance of a buddah or java the hut.













we hung out for a while and ate trail mix and fruit and then we decided to go to china beach day use area, a little ways down the hwy. h&s brought a lot more stuff than i did. i brought myself, my zoot zuit, my towel, and that's it. sarita brought untold amounts of jackets, they each brought snacks and camping chairs (heather had witnessed the beach fleas the night before and was exceedingly grossed out), heather's radio, saraita's bag of games, water bottles, a first aid fanny pack... it took a while for them to get it together. i helped by carrying the fannyfirstaid and the salt and vinegar chips.

this trail wasn't as bad as the day before.



on the way heather pointed out this slug, perfectly encompassing a twig on a tree. i thought it was cool. i'm fast becoming fond of slugs. i took a pretty cool picture of it too, you must admit.













then we found heather's hobbit hole.






















i was pleased to visit.





















on getting to the beach i became facinated with the drift wood logs. i've always loved those whitened logs. this one had cool patterns.


















there were a lot of these spiders and they were quick. i tried to ignore them.













































































china beach was sandy with smooth little pebbles scattered on the sand.
















i tried to capture the bird footprints but it was hard.



















i liked this lone pretty tree and you can see the shelter someone built below it. there were quite a few of those. it's the trailhead for the juan de fuca trail.




















pretty, hey?






































i like this one i took of heather and sarita doing their own exploring.

















sarita waded almost to her waist with her camera.






















heather and i stayed ashore.
















































a cool seaweed rock.























l&h























another one of my favourite trees.












get ready for a geeky series of pictures of me. i wanted heather to take some candids of me, but then i couldn't quite get candid because i knew she was doing it. note the mustard spot on my shirt.










































































sarita kept pointing at something but we couldn't hear her. she kept urgently pointing and finally she got close enough to point out the WHALES. that's right! there were what we think were humpback whales! a lady told me that they had heard humpbacks at botanical beach (40k) away the day before. we watched and watched and watched. over and over we would see the spray of water, and the hump glide over the water's surface and back down. once i was sure i saw tail fin too but i can't be sure. that was definitely one of my highlights. i thought we were the only ones on the beach who knew because we were the only ones who seemed to be staring steadfastly at the kelp forrest off shore where they were. but everyone i told on the beach were all nonchalant "ya i know. " or "yes i did." so i stopped telling people. we watched until they weren't to be seen anymore.



then h&s started reading. i sat in the sand. "didn't you bring a book?" asked sarita. "what did you think we were going to be social?" she laughed. they didn't read for long. we played 7s. sarita didn't know how to play but it didn't take her long to figure out. then she was brutal. i had crappy hands the whole time and didn't win one hand. we played the cards right on the sand and dug the cards into the sand at a slant.














that's when i found my favourite rock. heather said it looked like a creamsicle and i thought that was pretty astute. i put on the rock with the round striations and left it there. i also built a little inukshuk for karey. if randy was there he would have threatened to knock it down, i'm sure.















every five minutes the blessed wind up radio was wound up and tuned in.
















it got cloudier as the day wore on, but the sun came in and out of the clouds making me want to go in the water every so often, but i ended up not going.





eventually we got a bit peckish and headed for home.















if you look through the trees you can see a girl sitting at the side of a pool of water and you can see her reflection. it's all about the reflections.














us girls at the sign. i'm barely in there, but i'm in there.

when we got back to camp, we realized that we only 5 matches and that my stove was unstable. like the pipes were burning as well as the burner, if you know what i'm saying? so h&s ate their soup cold which is something i don't do. i ate some trail mix and then we drove south to find matches. on the way we noted the funny tsunami evacuation signs. they always had one guy running away from a huge wave. after some time and some windy roads we found a tiny general store and bought some match books or five cents each. there was also some ten cent candy, so we bought little bags of candy and heather who needed chocolate, bought an expensive bag of oreos.

that night we had dogs on the fire listened to the radio and went to bed around 10.