Back to my favorite beach hike / walk. The mountains are too hot, but it usually is nice and cool at the beach. Also on June 21, I scattered my late husband's ashes the beach in Westport. The beach has a name, but I don't care. I call it Bob's beach. He died near the winter solstice and I spread his ashes on the summer solstice. I used to feel guilty when I left him home with his caregivers while I went to the beach, but not now since I left him at the beach forever. He was very clear that he wanted his ashes spread in the Pacific Ocean. He was British and seeing the Pacific Ocean for the first time was a big deal for him.
I brought a larger camera and a mediocre long lens today. I won't bring my best and heaviest long lens on this hike and subject it to the elements. I wanted to get some shots of brown pelicans. I did not find them where I expected them near Bob's beach. Instead though, I saw my first ever Great White Pelican. Wow, they are huge!!
The air was hotter than predicted, so I did a fair amount of wading and got sandy and salty. I went to have my lunch on the Jetty near the surfing area, but on the side that overlooks Bob's beach. It was so hot there that I went out into the water up to my waist. Maybe I got some of my late husband's ashes on me?
I was so devastated when he died. I had no idea that it would be so awful. I suffered from 6 months of pure misery that was only just starting to relent when I went to New Zealand. I went because Bob never wanted to go there and I have not traveled since 2012 due to having to stay home with him to watch him slowly wilt and die. I found him dead on the dining room floor just a bit after midnight on December 10th. Did he die on the 9th or the 10th? He was born in England so he died on the 10th in his time zone.
I love my morning coffee, but every morning I have to walk past the spot where I found his corpse so I can get to the kitchen and have my coffee, I also have to walk past where for 14 months his hospice bed was set up in the dining room. Every morning before could even get out of bed, the first thing I though about was his death.
New Zealand fixed all of that. I could have my tea and coffee without walking past that awful spot and I had a lovely friend to share it with me. I was going to come back in a much better head space no matter what. Then something totally unexpected happened. I fell in love with my friend in New Zealand and it is mutual. I intend to go back to New Zealand in December and as often as possible after that.
Back to today, the plan for today was to have lunch at a spot overlooking Bob's beach, but I accidentally dumped my lunch, just a meager can of clams onto the rock that Sage had just licked all of her dog food off of. I scraped all my clams off the rock and then wondered, was I going to eat it? I had packed very little food, I'm trying to lose weight as usual, I really needed those clams but now they were mixed with dog food and dog saliva. As I pondered if I was going to eat my clams my phone chimed. Was it my friend in New Zealand? I set my can of clams on a log and reached for my phone and then my clams all spilled out and onto the beach rocks for a second time. Well at least my mind was made up then, I was not going to eat my clams. Sage enjoyed them fully though.
After my lunch of just coffee and beer I looked out at the spot where we went out on a boat and spread Bob's ashes and wondered why I did not feel sad and then I felt a sudden surge of rage. Bob was not always nice to me. He enraged me at least once a week when he was alive, but this was the first rage that I felt towards him since he died. Wow, what am I going to do with this rage now? Hate him forever, forget all the good things?
So much to process, new love, new grief and old rage. I'll have plenty to think about while I am out hiking for the next few years.
After my not a lunch, I remembered that I had packed a beer in my beautiful kiwi water bottle that was given to me by my Kiwi friend. Well beer has calories in it so that would be my lunch I guess.
Surprisingly I did not get hungry on my hike back. I got a bit tired and took a coffee break. Then a freaking family came and sat down right next to me. A full mile of empty beach on either side and they had to set up 30 feet away from me. I hate it when people use me as a landmark.
If I wanted to sit with people I would have sat with people instead of picking a spot a full mile from anyone else.. I got up and left in disgust. I'm sure they were perfectly nice people but I had just hiked 6 miles in the heat and on an empty stomach except for a can of Corona and two cups of coffee. I was not feeling social and neither was Sage. But at least Sage was well fed.
7.5 miles with 50 feet elevation gain. That is 12 kilometers.
My total mileage for the year is 265 miles or 426 kilometers my total for all of last year was 292 miles or 469 kilometers, so I'm closing in on last year fast.
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