We made it!Here’s my wonderful family, humoring me by heading to the beach as soon as we got the rig set up in our site.  They’d all be just as happy to hang out, but the water pulls me and I HAVE to go see it, see what the beach is like, what birds there are, how many shells I get to collect, where the sun sets, how far we can walk on it.  This state campground has about one mile of beach front, and then on either end there are high rises packed in.  It’s always hard to leave a great park, and I can tell already that this beach experience will be a little different.   It’s beautiful, but not unspoiled like Peninsula.  Our site is big and level and graveled, there are groceries a mile away, the library will be a short 7 mile drive, and we have phones and wifi that works, but HWY 98 is a 1/2 mile away and we can hear the drone of the traffic over the roar of the surf from our site.  I’ll take remote and unspoiled over noise any day.  I’ll just have to listen to music while I walk!

This is looking south down the beach, and Eliza took it as I was letting the wind help me blow bubbles.  Pure joy to be on the beach, in the sun with my family.  I  am in my happy zone even though THERE ARE NO SHELLS TO COLLECT.  I couldn’t believe it.  A beach without shells or agates?!  How can that be?!  Where’s God’s artwork?!  A local told me that the best shells are down the coast, where we’ve just come from, and they only get them here after big storms or hurricanes.  I can do without more bad weather, so I’ll just have to enjoy the green water and the seagulls.

I talked Nate into a little creativity time when we got back to the site and then we laughed over my simple snowman compared to his armored warrior.  Can’t wait to get these made into the screen door when we get home…  which we’ve been talking a lot about lately.  Going home.  HOME.  We’ve got 5 months left of this adventure and Dan and I know it will pass quickly.  We only did 6 1/2 months in 1998, and that was a blur.  We’re getting excited to see friends, family and our mountains again, but we also are cherishing each day on the road a little bit more now.  It’s hard to believe it’s been 428 days because we can remember each one, and Dan could list our campgrounds in a flash if he had to.  (Especially the ones when it was a rodeo to get into the site!)  The kids have grown up so much in 428 days, and we’ve done more and seen more than we even dreamed possible.  We know we are blessed to be living this dream and we don’t take it for granted.