Okay so Wednesday was our last opportunity for a whole day of full blown sun.
And the day did not disappoint.
So far, our experience involves mostly overcast, windy, and sometimes straight up cold weather. No rain so far, thank God. At most, the first night made everything damp (including Cookie the dog). About as close as we got to the dreaded R word.
This time we're both up around 830 with a quick morning walk followed by splitting an amazing breakfast burrito Kimmer's cousin made then saved for us. He made it around 7AM so it's not warm... but that doesn't matter. The taste, the flavor of it still rocks. ☺️
I finish my breakfast with a black cherry berry tea we brought from home, then at 930 I reset the interior of our campervan for daytime use, packing the bed linens and pillow, collapsing the bed back into a bench seat, and putting up the table between the bench seats.
After taking a longer breakfast hanging out with her cousin at the picnic table, Kimmer sets up her mobile office at the picnic table around quarter passed ten so she can begin the process of creating the Power Points to accompany the presentation she'll share with her online doctoral class at two that afternoon.
In the meantime, her cousin and nephew have already taken off to swap out the SUV for the truck as well as catch showers at home. Afterward, they're gonna pick up another friend after school's out at 12:37.
Oddly specific time, I know. But that's when the particular high school lets out this day.
Now I said before Kimmer has an online presentation to deliver for her doctoral cohorts and that presentation's not gonna happen from the beach or the picnic table or the inside of the campervan.
We're going back to the homestead, Kimmer's cousin's home about thirty-five minutes away. So we're back on the road coming up on noon, arriving at the homestead forty minutes later.
First things first: make sure all our electronics are charging.
Next up: shower and a change of clothes.
After that, I've got to move the campervan onto the street for parking. While I do that, Kimmer preps for her 2PM PowerPoint presentation that's coming up fast at this point.
The presentation ends at 3, an hour later, and Kimmer tells me that the professor who divvied up subject responsibilities had taken a little off the top of Kimmer's presentation and indicated Kimmer would also be touching on a subject she's not prepared for but does, in fact, know. So while the professor's speaking, Kimmer's getting rid of the PowerPoint slides she no longer needs and prepares a few new ones on the fly that she will need. And for all the juggling she did, her presentation turned out well. Ever the doubter, Kimmer even listened to the recording of that presentation and decided it actually did go well.
Afterward, we take the afternoon slowly, getting ready to leave and out the door ten minutes to five.
We roll back into camp at 5:30, discovering that Kimmer's nephew's friends have returned for some digging holes down on the beach in the sand and surf as well as a traditional pre-birthday celebration at the local Ruby's Diner. With that objective in mind, Kimmer and her cousin jump in his truck while I follow with four teenagers doing their teenager routine on the road. 😉
A good time is had by all, of course, at Ruby's with burgers, super burgers, shakes (each with another half of a shake in a metal tumbler on the side), turkey sandwiches, and one turkey sandwich with the turkey replaced by chicken instead and with avocado on the side. 🤔
We're there from 6:00 to 7:00 enjoying each other's company as well as food and drink. It's a pretty busy time. There's a family with crying baby and a dad who takes that baby off of his mother's hands and walks about to calm him down. He and his baby even go outside to enjoy the warmth and the palm trees. There's family next to them, a pretty big family, that's a pretty interactive bunch. There's another such family next to us who are having a lot of fun together. There's even a family with four kids on their way up the stairs to the roof top seating. Not sure if all the kids were part of the family or if it's some combination of kids and friends but it was a very live crew and it was going to be a very fun meal on the roof under sunny California skies.
By 'n by, a dad and his two little girls walk into the restaurant. The little girls are each walking with a screen that's playing cartoons. They sit down at a booth and continue watching their cartoons while the dad puts on headphones for a while and then takes them off to order and leaves them off. It's obvious, though, that he doesn't connect with his daughters. It's almost like he's unaware that they're even there. I don't think that's a failure in the way I usually think of failures. I think this is a genuinely disconnected human being. And that's kind of a depressing thing.
Back at our table, I find myself not necessarily jealous but I think it's very sweet that this group of teenage boys goes back to kindergarten. They've known each other that long and it's obvious they know each other very well, their strengths as well as their profound weaknesses. 🤨
Seven o'clock we're out of there. We're back by 7:30 with the boys settling in for a game of poker at the picnic table since it's not gotten too cold yet.
About a half hour later it does get that cold and they move into their tent. Which is sad because we all got used to a lovely hot day. ☺️
Kimmer and I retreat to the campervan for a while. We walk an incomplete piece of our loop around 8:30 talking about the possibility of joining her cousin in Death Valley for Thanksgiving. We've done this before many many years ago and it was a mixed bag then. The days were fantastic. The evenings and early nights were a wonder of infinite constellations in a perfectly dark sky. And the rest of the nights were stone cold freezing. The coldest night dipped down to 28 degrees Fahrenheit.
Since then, a lot of years have gone by and a lot of technology has blossomed to meet the challenge of keeping warm on really cold nights. So we talk about heat. We talk about electricity. We talk about different RV layouts, what those RVs provide, and what those RVs require.
Afterward, we return to find Kimmer's cousin setting up a propane fueled campfire. Once the fire is blazing, he sits down on his camp chair, places his chihuahua, Cookie, on his lap, and covers both the dog and his lap with a warm blanket.
We get some hot chocolates going after heating up water on the grill, and the boys join us around the fire with some sitting, most standing, and we talk away the night a little bit, alternating between questions and biting commentary fit for teens. 😆
Kimmer 'n I are back in the campervan a little after 9 because she still has studying to do and she wants a study buddy. ☺️ She's able to sustain her study for an hour and a half before we call it a day, transform the campervan for night time use, and, by quarter after 11:00, watch another couple episodes of Malcolm in the Middle.
Midnight, we turn off the laptop, turn off the lights, pull up the blankets, and close our eyes.
Ready for our last day at camp.
