Staying Local

Not ready to hit the trails. Still holding onto my seat from the 2023 wild ride. I’ve got a tree up still in my living room (fully decorated) and other remnants of holiday decorations around the house. I finally threw out the Christmas wreaths yesterday. I am going to miss that lovely pine smell. (All the more reason to get back to the mountains!)

We are only one week into 2024, I have a little time still to get organized and  to clean up the 2023 mess. The longer I wait to hit those trails though, the less capable I am to actually do it. Every day I don't get my legs moving up a mountain, I grow weaker, both mentally and physically. I can catch up on the mental fitness other ways (though that has been rare lately) and I try to do things that give me some fitness -- like take the stairs or park at the far end of the parking lot. Walking to the grocery store or post office is also a great way to keep some type of physical fitness (though it is waning!). So, I’m pretty much staying local lately with promises and hopes of at least hitting the trails a couple times before spring semester begins. Until then, I’ve been staying local. We’ve got lots of walking material here in my hometown, Dana Point, even some dirt trails. This week on one of my errand walkabouts, I decided to detour to the Headlands and mosey about the roped trails overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It was a beautiful sight. A great small start to getting my feet back to dirt.

Moving into Spring

Winter time in Southern California is not very wintery. Sure there’s snow on the mountains, some mountains, not my mountains. But here on the coast, I’d say we’ve moved right into spring 2023.

4 miles in the local hills:

Veterans Day Stroll Along The Headlands

One of the gems within walking distance from my front door: The Headlands. It takes some balance and focus but just keep on going until you find a doorway in the rocks.

The Last of June Gloom

Went out on a four mile hike the day before Summer Solstice (June 20) in my local hills off of Las Ramblas (In Dana Point). This was the second of back-to-back hikes, which is rare nowadays. June Gloom still had a grip on us here on the southern coast as you can see from my photos (you can also see the last of spring). Don’t let the clouds fool you – it’s not cold by any means and it’s humid.

The Headlands

Two huge things happened in my life during this pandemic, and neither of them have anything to do with the pandemic. But if it wasn’t for the pandemic, I would have been able to deal with these two huge things in the way that I was able (and I thank God for that).

Because of the pandemic I found myself teaching remotely. Therefore, I was able to live in the hospital for ten days when my youngest son became critically ill last summer (God Bless Miller Children's Hospital!) And then there’s the after-hospital stuff that I am able to manage because of the great flexibility that comes with teaching remotely. In addition to this, my oldest son, who studied in Washington, DC his last semester in college, decided to make a go at it out there. And so, I spent another 10 days away from home, visiting him in his new home (oh the joy! seriously, one of my greatest seasons!), which would have not been possible without the pandemic.

Wow. I just don’t know what to say about this. I’m a little awestruck. This is not to say that working remotely has run smoothly. Nope. Can’t say that. I was extremely behind in my prep when I returned from the East Coast – heck, who am I fooling? I wasn’t only behind in my prep. I was behind in EVERYTHING. I was behind in getting my taxes filed (alas, I made it by the extended deadline!), I was behind in my reading, in my emails, and I was behind in my writing (I’m also taking a creative writing class taught by long time friend and college professor of my Freshman Comp class way back when, and it’s been a couple weeks since I’ve submitted – also btw, this enriching class  wouldn’t have been possible without the pandemic.)

I am certainly not grateful for the pandemic – my God, what I’ve seen in the past year I would have never predicted in my youth. I am really just grateful that during this pandemic I was given so much grace.

While, I’ve been scrambling to catch up on everything, I did get in two quick hikes in my hometown, in an area that we call The Headlands. I’ve been hiking the Headlands since I first relocated from LA county (Covina) in 1988. We discovered it pretty quickly, the beach bums that we were in our 1 bedroom apartment across the street from the Pacific Ocean. The Headlands is an area in between the Dana Point Harbor/Marine Institute and Dana Strands beach.

On the first of my two hikes since returning from the other coast, I took my youngest son hiking – the one who was dropping ten pounds a month and couldn’t move without pain last summer – and showed him one of my favorite secret places in town, which of course is in that little spot called The Headlands. What makes this hike so terrific, is that you must wade through the ocean to complete it. If you make a loop of it, you only wade through the ocean once. An out-and-back of course means two times into the ocean. Now, wading through the ocean could mean knee deep or or could mean thigh deep. Any higher, I would advise against the hike. On this day, my youngest and I made a loop back to my truck parked at the Marine Institute, totaling about 4 miles.  (Since then he’s gone back often, returning home with details of the area that I’ve never noticed. Now, I’ve got to plant the seed about seeking God’s face in the secret place . . . in time, because right now he’s going to laugh in my face. .)

But how can he deny the existence of God with scenes like this?
First of 2 hikes. 4 mile loop around The Headlands
(Around April 20, can’t be sure of date, because I’m still out-of-sorts)

At a about .75 of a mile, the trail ends, and you must make a sharp right turn and walk through this cave:

And when you come out on the other end of the above cave, you are here, which is the area we must wade through to get to the other side. Timing is key. I like to wade out to a large boulder, stand on it so that I feel grounded, and wait until the tide goes out. That’s when I drop down into the water and make haste around the corner where I can stumble upon the boulders back up to dry land. Sometimes, but not on this particular hike, the waves rush in sooner than I can get to dry land. I’ve done it so many times since 1988 that I know to find solid ground and brace myself (preferably with some arm strength up against the cliff wall) and wait until the waves rush back out before continuing on:

This is the area that most casual day trippers don’t get to because of the “wading” I described above:

Hike 2 around the Headlands (out and back, approx. 2.5 miles)
Mother’s Day 2021

Soon after returning back from the East Coast, my oldest flew to the West Coast to walk his graduation ceremony. One of the things he did on his short trip here was take a hike around The Headlands with his youngest brother, his father, and his mother (me) on Mother’s Day. Yes, we raised our three boys in a beach cottage (which means a tiny home) but as a consolation prize, this was out our front door -- even on a cloudy, eerie looking day, it’s awesome:

Yes, I am behind on pretty much everything. But I feel more peace than I have in a long time.