We spent the weekend with my family in Carmel.  It was peaceful, mostly when we were out of the house.  After dropping the zoo off at the kennel and a long drive, it was nice to sit with family and watch basketball.  But the real highlight was walking on Saturday morning.

We drove down to Asilomar and pulled off the road to a long jetty.  From the road, it looked like the rocks ended at a large ice plant covered nesting area with Canadian geese.  We climbed around, looking in tide pools and decided to climb over the rocks, past the nesting area.  The rocks extended out even further and we were totally alone.  The other tourist types hadn’t ventured as far out as we did and we were treated to a lovely display of waves crashing on the rocks.  Several otters swam close by us and the water had this deep blue sapphire gleam.  It was absolutely breathtaking.   We sat for close to an hour, just listening to the crash of the waves on the rocks, the seagulls shrieking nearby and basking in the warm sun.

We both desperately needed the break, the time to go away from everyone and just refresh ourselves.  The last 2 months have been a strain, emotionally, physically, spiritually.  There isn’t an easy way to recover from loss, from death, from all that we’ve been through.  There is only time to ease the pain and for now, there hasn’t been nearly enough time to have perspective or healing.  It will come, just not yet.