4/22/2007

On a Clear Day You Can See to . . . Washington


It rained this before breakfast and was cloudy through the morning, but the sun came out in the afternoon. So, after naptime was over, we headed down to the beach at White Rock (just a mile south of us). The tide was out, so we were able to walk out a way on the sand, jumping across tidal pools. When it's not overly hazy, you can see across Semiahmoo Bay to Washington--actually, you can see parts of Washington on almost any day. So the first picture is the bay. The second picture is looking back into White Rock (it's mainly
a retirement community or very wealthy).

Anders and I went out and explored the tidal pools for a while (Beth and Nils came down and watched some skimboarders [see her blog] and went back up and checked out a couple of shops). I think if you're there at the right time, there's a lot of sea life to find, but at the end of the ebb, it's quite dead. The sea gulls have picked over the shells pretty well, the only crabs were dead ones (or parts of them)--really the gulls and some sea wood was the only life out there for the most part, though if you dug in the sand you'd find some worms and such (the casings make their homes obvious). But we did find a couple good shells (that the gulls hadn't broken) and Anders loved digging in the sand. We thought ahead to bring Anders rubber boots with, but it didn't much matter--he splashed water up past his knees.

We met Beth and Nils up on the promenade and had some cheese and crackers for supper (I think we were the only ones not eating fish and chips). We ran over and to see the First Nations' totems that were donated in honor of the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) which we hadn't seen before. We sat to eat about 6pm and there were still a couple of hours of sunlight left. It's nice to be on the western end of a time zone in the spring.

It's a new life. We never thought we'd live within a couple miles of the ocean and an hour of the mountains (we haven't gotten up there yet). We miss the sunsets of Iowa (along with plenty of other things--mainly people), but you can't spend all your time pining over what God has taken you from when there's things He has taken you to. There's maybe some analogy with the tide there--how things are left behind when it goes out, but it eventually comes back in and brings new life in with it. I'm not going to try and sift that one out. It's just good to know God is with you wherever He takes you and that His creation is always amazing--whether its the prairie or the ocean, the forest or the lake.