Jalama

On Friday morning, we drove north and west for about 5 hours to meet Jen, Mathias, and Luci Mosinski at Jalama Beach, or "Jalama lama ding dong" as Jen calls it. It is an isolated, undeveloped, beautiful stretch of coastline that evokes the California of 200 years ago. Our journey to Jalama was not without drama. The campground is first come, first served so we felt very anxious as we turned onto the winding, 14 mile road that leads to the beach and saw a "campground full" message. As we negociated the curves, Caleb began to scream, which only heightened our general sense of unease. But when we reached the beach, there was one campground left. Hooray! (Gina thinks the park ranger saved one discretionary campground for a special carload of people who looked like they would be especially crushed to be turned away. The screaming baby and frazzled passenger riding shotgun might just have convinced her that we were ones she was waiting for.) We thoroughly enjoyed the lovely afternoon at the beach, setting up the tents with help from the kids, the subsequent Boogle rounds, and the delicious meals. For me, it represented the end of summer. Classes start on Monday, in addition to my ongoing research projects.