Return to the Beach

We finally had a day of sunshine and clear skies yesterday, such that Alma and I felt confident in returning to the beach. Our confidence was amply rewarded with very nice weather yesterday and we did our customary 3-mile walk between the Washington Boulevard pier and the Villa Marina jetty (and the short breakwater a 1/2 mile north of the pier). Nothing remarkable happened on this walk. We saw nothing especially of note and, although I thought I might have seen a dolphin beyond the surf, I decided it was merely my eyes playing tricks on me and making me see what I wanted to see.

While we were walking, though, Alma happened to ask me how many cumulative miles I thought we had walked on this stretch of beach in the past 6 months. I guessed that, out of the preceding 180-odd days, we had probably walked this stretch of beach about 100 days. 3 miles/day makes some 300 miles of cumulative walking on this one stretch of beach.  We have walked this particular stretch so much that I think we are entitled to call this our beach in a way few other Californians can, even those whose dwellings face it. I have grown very fond of it.

I mention this only to note that, although we are there every day the weather allows, I never grow sick of it the same way that I have grown sick of our trips to the Westfield Culver City mall on days when the weather is bad. And indeed the weather appears to have again taken a turn for the worse over the past 24 hours and is again cloudy and cold. So we may well be headed back to the mall for our daily constitutional today. Ugh, I do not look forward to that walk at the mall in the slightest. It will be very hum-drum going through the motions unless Alma and I stumble on an enlivening topic of conversation.