monday. home. coffee. toast. looking over my photos from our week by the mighty pacific.
plotting ways to get to the beach on a more regular basis. thoughts: buy a trailer, pitch a tent, find a dirt cheap rental. because i need to go for more beach walks and i am not fond of LA beaches. although i suppose if i were more open-minded in that regard i could make-do. LA beaches, and by that i mean as far south as redondo and as far north as zuma, were the stomping grounds of my 20’s and 30’s.
these days i prefer the quieter, rock strewn, wilder beaches further north.
once i started driving getaway cars, my inner sea compass pulled me away from southern california to central coast beaches, until my favored beaches became carpinteria & santa barbara area beaches. i remain deeply fond of the monterey peninsula, but it’s a day’s drive so un-practical for quicky beach fixes.
the last couple of years find me plotting how to settle in the carpinteria/santa barbara area in the next 8-10 years. permanently.
or at least living up there 6 months a year. moss cottage summer/fall. carpinteria winter/spring. ideas ideas ideas are doing their lovely work inside my head.
i must walk daily on those powdery sand beaches, catalogue shore birds & kelp, collect white bits of shell and rock, wet my feet in seafoam.
i could be very content in one of these beachy trailers for 6 months. or forever.
this jumbo english cottage sits on hammond’s beach. if i lived here the data center in my brain would be performing hourly rising sea level and storm surge calculations. most unrestful.
you arrive here via a hidden trail off eucalyptus lane in montecito that is utterly charming. i command you to go forth and find it! or not.
another day i found this bike path above gorgeous butterfly beach. i came upon this mystery estate when i parked on fairway road and made my way down the curving trail which winds around this property.
don’t think for an instant that i didn’t notice the footholds on the columns. my steadfast moral code unwieldy size kept me on this side of the gate.
you can see the channel drive bike path trail in the satellite image below. i twisted my neck this way and that trying to see into this estate. the photo i have up top of a rosy sky and palms was taken along this path.
i think this is loon point beach below.
so many beaches for sunrise & sunset strolls.
some mornings dottie & i rolled out of our warm beds before the sun rose and headed for the beach. the brisk air woke us up.
sunrise sunset. my favorite times for walking.
that’s miramar beach in the distance and eucalyptus lane beach getting ready to turn into hammond’s beach.
then ritzy butterfly beach beyond that. next time i want to start at east beach during low tide and trek over here. my head is full of ideas. all involving beach strolls and beach living and hidden beach paths.
where are you? what are you doing? i insist that you tell me!
I keep coming back to view these beach scenes. So beautiful.
Yesterday I realized I had not heard from you for months (it seemed) so I went to feedly to make things right. Today, for the first time in ages, I got your feed in my feedly…and I am appalled how low you have sunk with the lack of my supervision: driving “getaway cars” and looking for handholds on fences. Sigh. I will be keeping a very close eye on you, young lady!
A wonderful post for dreamers and doers. And Mary Ann, what about the comments from your readers?! Just as good as the post. That poem – Oy !
this is quite far north, Whidbey Island, Washington……lots of arts ‘a -happenin’, wonderful fruits and vegetables grown on the island….and just a ferry ride into wonderful Seattle. I was born up there and have been lucky to visit once.
my all time favorite beach is Duxbury Town Beach, Duxbury, MA. but it would be
mighty challenging to find a cottage up in that town….they are very well hidden behind BIG historic homes. My paternal grandparents retired to this town in 1951/52 and my dad’s sister & family joined them in the late ’50’s.
I for one am all for you putting down stakes of some kind or another on a northern beach. Your photos have been feeding my love of sea and sand. I doubt I can cajole the hubby ever moving to California so given that I’m a permanent resident of this space right here. I’ve settled in for the long haul and am like a kid in a candy store, waiting for whatever visual feast you care to share. I think all of your plans are wonderful and I just know that when the time comes and when an opportunity presents itself, you will be right on it. I know you have a keen eye for adventures and the big picture. Right now I am lovin’ the views, every single one of them. 🙂
Seeing these photos begins to make me long for the beach…this happens to me periodically…however, I have been planted in the foothills of Tennessee which is also a grandly beautiful place..I remind myself to be content with the overflowing cup I have been given…your six/six split idea sounds lovely, and I hope you can make it work…from reading your blog and taking your classes, I’m thinking you will do so. You are clearly an adventurer, a Marco Polo, hungry to drink it all in and willing to walk the miles (literally and figuratively) necessary to craft the life you desire.
i like this, “craft the life you desire”! i like it v.v. much. thanks for your lovely vote of confidence…
Good plan. Excellent in fact. If you run airbnb in your beach house you can help finance it all. I’ll be your first guest.
I walked beside the Mediterranean for the first time yesterday. While it soothed me I am clear that there is nothing as atavistic and sourceful for me as the Pacific Ocean. Drink it in and know you are on point. Loved your photos.
You make me feel extra fortunate to be living on my little island surrounded by sea and endless beaches. I can leave my house, walk through a bit of forest and be at the North Sea in fifteen minutes. We are having storm season right now and that means the water is wonderfully wild and the sand is moving in long sways across the beach floor, making one feel like one is floating a little. I love fall and winter when everything is so alive with wind and waves. I spent the last weekend taking several walks between storms sometimes having to fight the wind just to get home. Idyllic palm tree beaches or not my thing, it’s the places where you can actually feel the elements that attract me. I live in a good place. 😉 (10 Beaufort past weekend!)
Great pics and glad you are glad you are sharing , if you have time to Google. Central Coast NSW au you will see where I am 5 min in the car surrounded by lakes and ocean….you need to get a Woody to drive around in lol….
The poem below makes me think of your rambling heart.
It is by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, on her website ‘A Hundred Falling Veils”.
She writes a poem a day and I subscribe to her daily posts.
Wild Rose Takes a Spin
by Rosemerry
Let other people drive on the road.
Wild Rose takes the invisible exit off the bridge,
drives up the suspender cable, launches
from the tower and aims her hood toward the skyline.
She does not stop to peek in city windows.
There is nothing indoors that excites her.
Past the late-night accountants, past
the office affairs, past the dark sullen rooms—
she steps on the gas and takes a right
toward the lopsided moon. She doesn’t care
if she gets there. All she knows is there’s
a tank full of pluck and the night is playing
the only song she wants to sing. It feels
good, the song, as it swerves off her lips.
The tune tastes of freedom, of tree-ripened plums,
of a long, long way still to go.
simply fabulous. printed and pasted in my writing journal and soon to be copied into my sketchbook journal. so beautiful ann. sigh
I share your passion for the central coast and distaste for so cal beaches, as well as your plan to live in Carp or thereabouts. I live just 5 miles from Huntington Beach and very seldom go there. A strange vibration. I do like Balboa Peninsula though, about 20 minutes south. My mom and I spent summers there a long time ago and it’s hardly changed. Today I’m getting ready to drive up to Carp tomorrow. Every trip, inspired by your pix, I tell myself I will explore more beaches, but I don’t. I just stay in Carp and walk as far as I can, except for once when I went to Hendry’s. Maybe this time.
Love hearing this, don’t fight the siren call of our beach walks, with their sunrise and sunset benefits thrown in for free… xox