Another photo from the archives. This is from last month. I learned that the lowest tides of the year – more than three feet below normal low tide! – was due to fall around noon on a weekend! That was too good a combination to pass up. I made impromptu plans to bring Alex to the beach while Patrick napped.
The lesson here: Not all adventures succeed, and not everything that excites me will excite my offspring. For me, the thought of a minus tide is an invitation to peer into a smelly, salty other world of slimy seaweed, sea stars, squishy colorful anemones, and dangerously sharp barnacles. I love it. It reminds me of my younger years, when I almost became a volunteer at the Seattle Aquarium. I still remember a lot of their training. (The more interesting work as a “science demonstrator” at the Pacific Science Center eventually kept me from the Aquarium.)
To Alex, a minus tide means nothing.
I took him to Carkeek Park. I hadn’t been there in probably seven years. It didn’t have the rocky beaches I was looking for, but it didn’t matter. Alex was tired, cranky, and no amount of pleading could convince Alex to get anywhere near the waterline. We played on the beach for ten minutes and he was ready to go home.
The only good thing from this trip: On the way back to the car, I somehow talked Alex into lying down in a field of flowers long enough for me to take this picture. I love it.
