The Beach Walk

School ended two days ago and this was the first chance I had to get out and do some hiking. My two week Pacific Crest Trail backpacking trip is less than a month away and I definitely will be trying to get as much hiking in as possible to build up my leg strength and stamina. With that in mind, I fill up my 3 liter water bladder to add 6.6 pounds of weight, and stick a small folding chair in my backpack as well. Last year I just added a 10 pound bag of flour, but my savvy husband said, "Why not take stuff you can actually use, like a chair?" Duh, why didn't I think of that?

I drive down the road to the beach after checking the tide table. The tide is coming in, but will only be a high tide of 5.2. That is a pretty low high tide. I generally wouldn't try to walk the beach along the Whidbey Island cliffs with an incoming tide of 6 or higher, simply because there are some places where you could be blocked by the sea.

I park at Ebey's Landing and start walking the beach to the south. A friend had taken my dog for a walk a few weeks earlier on the beach, had let her off the leash, and she had run up a hill and gotten stuck on the top of the cliff. He found a path to the top of the cliff and went up to get her and I am curious to see where this path is.



Ebey's Landing

I fill my lungs with the briny salt air and as I hike along the beach listening to the waves pounding the shore, my soul fills up just a bit. Hiking fills up my soul. I've discovered as I've taught more and more years that summer break is no longer a luxury for me, but a necessity. It gives me time to fill up my soul again. I am a much better teacher when I'm a happy human being.

I love teaching when I can shut my door and talk with my kids and share the excitement of learning about other cultures. It is all the other stuff that sucks the joy out of me. Things like new teacher evaluation systems and new Smarter Balanced Tests and new administrators who are in our rooms every week observing us (instead of twice a year) and who don't understand the importance of recognizing all the great things we're doing with our kids and instead focus on the hoops we're expected to jump through, like making sure our Bloom's taxonomy poster is displayed on the wall somewhere in our room. Yes, Sir, my poster is actually up. It has been up for two weeks on the side of my cabinet facing my desk. Sorry you didn't see it from the back of the room as you typed madly on your ipad during your 5 minute observation.

A large tree stump juts out of the beach

I continue down the beach, Sadie firmly leashed, and after awhile I see the sign that says that I'm entering a private beach area at my own risk. I can see the saddle on the hill ahead and then the path up it. A yellow no trespassing sign warns against taking the path to the Sherwill Community above so I continue down the beach to a large green rock where I pause to give Sadie a drink on a flat log.

 

This green rock marks my turn around point

 

We turn around here and I pull out a small black bag and pick up the trash I find on the beach as we return to the car. A plastic bottle, an empty yogurt container. Shortly before we get back to the car it starts to rain. Its not much more than a light mist, really, and I don't bother to pull out my rain coat since we're almost back.

Once again I fill my lungs with that wonderful salty sea air. I'm grateful for that beautiful fragrance, for the sight of footprints in the sand and the sound of the waves beating against the rocky shore. Ah, thank God for summer.