Quick Getaway

Last Monday, my parents and I took the two little boys to Inverness for a couple of days. It is one of my favorite drives, because to me it has a little bit of everything: some east bay, a nice bridge, some quirky Marin, rolling golden hills with oak trees, some redwood forest in the Samuel P Taylor state park, and then you've arrived in Inverness, with Tomales Bay on the one side and the Pacific just over the hill.

Here is Sebastian, lavishing affection on a cement mixer left at the house. He took it down to the beach and put shells in it and rolled them around for a while. He was a great sport even though the three adults he was with were pretty dud playmates, and went running up and down the beach trolling for objects worthy of attention. He found several rocks he thought were geodes, but he calls them GeoTrax like his trains at home. Then grandma discovered a three foot snake that was sitting on the toilet seat in the bathroom (which picture I have spared you, unlike the Freudian toilet lids of the alps) and that was quite a bit of excitement. He finished by throwing tortilla chips to some seagulls, who loved him for it.

Joss was against the whole enterprise from the get-go. He doesn't like travel, he doesn't like change, he doesn't like sand, he doesn't like to be too wet, hot, or cold. He slept horribly both nights, and both days I walked around bumping into doors and forgetting the word for every noun I wanted to say.

The last day we went to Limantour, a beach on the Pacific. My family came here first when I was a teenager and I loved it. I brought back my siblings a couple of times (when it's too hot in the bay area it's just right here) and my friends, and it was one of my very first dates with Rob as well. This was the first time any of the kids had come and Sebi loved running in the waves and squealing his barbaric yawp. Unfortunately the beach was not Joss's scene, and he and grandpa stayed in the van while Sebi and I got numb in the surf. And when I said it was time to go, Sebi really, really wanted to stay, but he left without a tantrum which is one of the traits I love about him best. He transitions very well, even when it's a great Thomas the Tank Engine table he's playing with and he'd like to stay for another two hours.
Sebi and I decided here that we'd like to be marine biologists.