9/9/2017 - Beachcombing day

Saturday - First of all, our Florida kids have safely evacuated to South Carolina.  That's a big relief.  When the hurricane models shifted to moving the "cone" to include Tampa, they loaded up and headed out.  I woke up at 4:50 this morning, knew I wouldn't get back to sleep with that on my mind, so I texted Bridgette, and she said they were on the road.  They arrived at their hotel about 7:00 p.m. eastern time, so they had a long day -- John, Bridgette, Andrew, Catalina, 4 dogs and a cat in their truck, pulling their camper; followed by Doug and Barbara and 4 dogs in Bridgette's truck.  I hope they all get some good rest tonight.

Our day, since it started early, was our beachcombing day.  After our successful venture of agate-hunting yesterday (we did actually find a few), we were on the beach by 6:30, in the heavy sea mist.

I couldn't find any this morning.  Joe found a couple fairly quickly,  and I think I found one before we left, but it wasn't a very successful morning for me.  I think he ended up with 4.  Of course, I did pick up a few pretty rocks, though.  We spent about 2 1/2 hours on the beach, then came back to the RV, changed into dry clothes, and decided to go into Trinidad.  We still wanted to check out the little museum and see if they had a book about agates.  On our way out of the campground, we encountered a high school track meet, which had us blocked for a few minutes.

We finally made it through this road block, and drove into town, fueled, and stopped at the museum, which was not open.  So we walked through a couple gift shops, then decided to get something to eat.  Since we had a quick breakfast at 6:00, we had breakfast again (it's about 11:00 by now)!  Then we went back to the museum, and it was still closed, although it was due to open in another half-hour.  We gave up on that, headed back to the campground, and stopped at the visitor center to see if they had a book about agates.  They had a little brochure, so we picked that up, came back to camp, and took a nap to make up for our early morning.  I slept a lot better knowing my kids had left Florida.

About 4:00, we headed out to go agate-hunting again.  Our plan was to go to our Agate Beach here in the campground, which involved a steep 1/4 mile hike down to it.  But in the parking lot, we met a couple just coming back off the beach and they said there were no agates down there - it had been picked clean.  So we decided to go back to our regular spot, Big Lagoon beach, which actually is a continuation of our Agate Beach by 2 miles.  Miraculously, the sun had come out and washed away the sea mist.  This is our pretty Agate Beach.

We went back to our Big Lagoon spot, and did our second shift of beachcombing.  It was nice to have some sunshine.  My campground brochures says "Patrick's Point is shrouded in fog much of the year.  During the summer, sometimes fog does not burn off for days at a time.  ... Temperatures are moderate much of the year, with only about a 10-degree difference in average temperatures between summer and winter.  Summer highs average 62 degrees, with winter lows to 38 degrees."  It's been 62 degrees here most of the time, a few degrees less first thing in the morning, but usually not any higher than 62 during the day.

So here we are.  Hard at it.  This time, I found two right away, and eventually I think I found a third, along with several I consider "possibilities."  Joe ended up with 5.

We worked the beach for a couple of hours, then Joe decides he will just continue on down the beach back to our Agate Beach, and I will go back to the car, then drive back to the campground and pick him up.  He really did not want to leave this place without hiking the 1/4 mile difficult trail down to our beach.  We figured we were already about a mile down the beach, so he went one way and I went the other, back to the car.  I kept watching him, and he was not making much forward progress -- he was really working the beach, searching for agates.  At one point I wasn't sure if he was still going that way, or had decided to come back with me, but I finally saw him head south, so I worked my way back to the car.  The sun was just setting (7:15).  (It wasn't as dark as this picture looks.)

 I headed back to our campground, to the Agate Beach parking lot.  That took about 15 minutes.  I got a couple of nice pictures of the beach while I waited for Joe.  The sun hadn't quite set here, as I was at a little higher elevation.

 I love this next picture.

I didn't have my binoculars, but I spotted a red shirt down there, so I thought that was him.  I decided to walk a little ways down the trail to meet him.  But instead, I met a girl coming up the trail in a red shirt.  I asked if there was an old man in a red shirt somewhere behind her, but she said she had not seen him.  Hmmmm.

 I went back up the trail to the top, and looked some more.  Now I didn't see anyone.

 So I went back to the car and waited a little while.  Then I went back over to the lookout.  Still couldn't see him.  I decided to try to call him but we had not been carrying our phones on the beach.  It rang, and he answered!  Surprised me.  He said he was not close yet, but was moving along now because it was starting to get dark.  So he had finally quit looking for agates.  But he couldn't see the trail to the top yet.  So, ok, I waited some more.  Then he called me again, said he wasn't sure if he had missed the trail but he couldn't see it. He had started up one trail but it just made a turn back down, so he didn't think that was right.  So I drove the car over toward the ocean and shined my lights, then drove around in circles in the parking lot, then parked again toward the ocean.  Finally, he saw my headlights so he knew he was in the right place.  He told me to go back to the RV and get flashlights, then come meet him on the trail.  So off I went, changed into jeans and shoes and socks instead of my boat shoes, and headed back over, not knowing if I could even find that parking lot in the dark.  But after one wrong turn, I made my way there.  Just as I was pulling in, he called again.  He had found some people, they pointed him in the right direction, so he was on the right trail, but he wanted me to still meet him, with flashlight and his walking stick, because he was pretty tired.  So off I went down the trail, armed with 2 flashlights and his walking stick.  I yelled a couple of times, but no answer.  Finally, I met some people, and they said he was right behind them.  So we hooked up, and I led him back up the trail.  A little more excitement than I needed, and he was beat. 

But all ended well.  Joe said we had better luck at this (agate-hunting) than we had panning for gold.  We have a nice little bag of agates, 12-15, with several other "possibilities," and a new stash of "pretty rocks."  We had a good time here, it was different, had a little beach time.  But tomorrow we move on.  And I need to do laundry because we have a bunch of wet clothes.