We have been busy this morning: I baked a pie, Gary did laundry, we picked up the mail, I read aloud, but first thing this morning we enjoyed a nearly a three-hour walk. We walked from spring right into summer at 8:54AM. Today is the first day of summer and the morning sky showed cobblestones overhead, mist along the shore.

The seagulls do not mind us much—so long as we walk in some direction other than straight at them, so long as we do not stare, and so long as Gary does not tease them by making claws of his fingers and muttering Kitty-kitty-kitty. We do not like disturbing them at their rest.

The black oystercatchers who nest at Hug Point did not mind us either today. They glanced at us, but seemed not to mind and continued foraging for sand crabs (?) and mollusks. We assumed their babies must be out of the nest, but then a walker with a dog came along and they went into their act of distraction. Not here! Not here! they seem to cry. They raised their wings and danced all around.

Hug Point is so-called because in my mother’s childhood and before travelers used the sand to get to our beach, hugging this headland. The highway didn’t come through until the 30s. A path was partially blasted around Hug Point, concrete poured to make it navigable by car, while the horse-drawn milk wagon went right through the creek and tide pools.

There are still traces of concrete at Hug Point (you can see a bit in the foreground below), but much of that old roadway is worn away. When we decide to “walk long” we mean walking north around this headland.

Limpets and barnacles on the sandstone, shown here. Anemones and gooseneck barnacles and chitons too.

On the way home, Gary wanted a photo of thumbs-up in front of a rock that seems to have the same attitude.