Sunset Beach . . . August, 1996.

Shuddup, Dad, can't you see this map is not good enough to find the right street.' Alyssa replied. 'Look, Monterey is this big circle; the circle next to it is Watsonville.' We got to Watsonville, didn't we???.' 'That is the best I can do with your stupid map dumbo.'

We turned south on Highway 101, tired, lost, hungry, and a little worried that the sun was going down and we needed to get our tents set up. That was going to be tough since we couldnt' find the campground. Alyssa says it is my job to drive and read the map now. She says she will not open it again this whole trip. Maybe the problem is that we are too much alike. Maybe it is that she has inherited her disposition from me. Down the highway we go in tense silence. Arent vacations great.

We pull off at the first exit, 4 miles down the highway. I go into the convenience store and ask the young lady for directions to Sunset Beach. She is pleasant and helpful, and makes me feel better right away. 'What you do is get back on the freeway and go north to the first exit, about 3 or 4 miles, then turn left and follow the signs.' Back up the highway we go, retracing the 4 miles we had just driven. 'Boy I am good kids,' I say to the girls, 'We were on the right road and didnt even know it . . .'. 'I must be a freakn genius.'.

We found the campground, picked our site, then ran down to the beach to take in the sites and smells and sounds of the sea before dark. It has been six years since we visited the ocean. Amy hardly remembers it at all. I needed to call their Mom, to check in, so the kids went one way; I went the other, to find a phone. Sandpipers and other shore birds ran in and out of the surf; Brown Pelicans flew above the waves in groups; flocks of seagulls circled and landed then took to flight again as I passed.

A sea otter was swimming on its back just beyond the waves, holding his front feet out of the cold water to keep them warm, playing with something it held on its stomach. I yelled at the kids to come see this, but they were too far away. The smell of the ocean air and the sound of the waves was invigorating. It felt as I was standing near the heart of nature, and could feel her rhythmic breathing in the waves.

I called the girl's Mom; she was not home.

I walked back over to the beach and watched the sun break into little lines as I dropped behind the water. A warm yellow glow filled the sky and the sea when the sun disappeared.

It was dark when we set up the tents and fired up our Coleman stove. We joked and talked late into the night, as did the other campers beneath the grove of Monterey Pines. A skunk searching for food added some excitement since it scuttled up to an arm's length of Alyssa.

The kids had no trouble falling asleep. In this day they had gone over Tioga Pass into Yosemite, walked in alpine meadows and around a high mountain lake, took a strenous hike down to the Tuolomme Grove of Giant Redwoods, traveled through 106 degree heat in the central valley into suprisingly cool 65 degree coastal air at Gilroy, then on to the Pacific in our roundabout way.

I sat next to the campfire enjoying the memories of the day along with a cold beer or two. I thought of how the kids had been a little disappointed in their walk along the beach; all they could find were broken sandollars and fragments of seashells. But what a vacation, what a happy adventurous day this was.

Maybe years from now the memories of this vacation will fade for the girls. I am sure they will visit the ocean many times in their life. But for me, the memories of this trip will never fade; the times we had will grow in importance for me. To the kids I have become 'dumb old Dad' the nature nut. They tend to minimize my interests and activities; I find myself walking alone most of the time, even on my weekend hikes. In years gone by my whole family would be with me.

In this trip though I believe I had captured their interest. 'Let's tour the West in my Dinosaur of a car; Let's drive to the ocean.' I told them. They were so excited about it that they could barely sleep the night before we left. We headed off into the morning darkness forgetting all of our canned food and or pans. After surviving a blowout and a 360 across the highway, and restocking our food and pans in Salina Utah, we were off to the adventurous West.

As you get older you become more aware of what limited time you have in this world. You become aware of your own mortality, and began to realize you must treat each day as a gift. Which is why my vacation with my girls is so important to me, one of the best things I have done. These girls will have some happy memories of a vacation with dumb old Dad.

The next morning at Sunset Beach I rose before dawn and wrote Janet a letter in the car. She knew by the tone of my daily letters how much I missed her. As soon as it got light I went down to the beach to walk. It was the low tide of the day. I spotted a sanddollar in the wet sand, ocean ripples washing over it. I picked it up and held it up to the dim morning light. It was a perfect one, with an immaculate cross in its center. I looked around an saw that the entire beach was covered with hundreds of sand dollars. I ran back up the dunes to wake my daughters. In five minutes they were dressed and on the way down to the shore with me.

Alyssa and Amy collected sand dollars for an hour or two, until they had more than they needed. We walked past a California sea lion that had come up on the beach. The waves rushed in and out, as my daughters examined all the precious shells they had found, treasure to two landlocked Colorado girls.