A Day Out with Liza

Dear Jasper and Kestrel,

We got to spend all of Sunday with Cousin Liza!

After a tasty breakfast at The Old Monterey Cafe, we fetched Liza from Salinas to begin our adventure.

As usual, the Monterey Bay started out overcast and chilly. Lover’s Point Beach had a fine crowd of visitors anyway because they knew the sun would come out soon.

I introduced Cousin Liza to my watercolor brush pen, and she had fun making a picture of a “C” monster, as well as “T” and “B” Monsters. She is developing a nice, careful painting technique.

We walked down past Lovers Point Park, finding great rocks to climb on and trees to climb. Liza posed with this wonderful statue by Dorothy Fowler. It is called “Yesterday’s Dream, Tomorrow’s Memory”, and always makes me think of the Robert Louis Stevenson poem called “To my Name Child.”

From “To My Name Child” by Robert Louis Stevenson

                               

Some day soon this rhyming volume, if you learn with proper speed,
Little Louis Sanchez, will be given you to read.
Then you shall discover, that your name was printed down
By the English printers, long before, in London Town
. . . . . . . . . . . 

Now that you have spelt your lesson, lay it down and go and play,
Seeking shells and seaweed on the sands of Monterey,
Watching all the mighty whalebones, lying buried by the breeze,
Tiny sandpipers, and the huge Pacific seas.

And remember in your playing, as the sea-fog rolls to you,
Long ere you could read it, how I told you what to do;
And that while you thought of no one, nearly half the world away
Some one thought of Louis on the beach of Monterey!

We stopped for lunch at The Grill and watched an ocean water polo game out in Lover’s Point Cove. A local seagull made sure we didn’t waste any of our hot dogs.

We visited Dennis the Menace Park and Liza enjoyed the newest installation. It is an incredibly fast spinning thing! I wouldn’t go near it, but she sure had fun.

By this time, we were pretty pooped, so we headed back to our room at the Monterey Hotel for a rest. Grandpa Nelson read the first chapter of The Hobbit out loud and it was just about the best part of the day. I hope Cousin Liza continues her reading.

Once we were rested and brushed the sand off, we met Uncle David (the birthday boy) and Auntie Olga at The Forge in the Forest for dinner. Yummy wine and lasagne, a cozy fire and fun family… the only thing missing was you guys!

I sure loved our visit back to our old haunts. Seeing friends and the ocean filled a bit of an empty space in my heart, and saying goodbye to all of them to fly home Monday morning was hard.

Love,

Grandma Judy