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Shawn and I went for a beach stroll today. We drove out to South Chestermans and parked the truck in the public lot. Walked the short distance at the far south end of the beach to some stone steps camouflaged amongst big river boulders. There's a trail starting there that cuts inland through the forest a bit, parallel to the beach and the highway. Eventually you come out to a private paved road going up sharply, with driveways going off of it. The Rosie Bay houses, on the cliffs. Sometimes we go up there to the very top, where there's a trail leading to a look-out with two decrepit wooden chairs on a platform that's falling apart. It's cradled in the stunted trees, with a totally open view of Rosie Bay and the open ocean beyond. Just beyond the trail is a house, and the first summer I moved to Tofino it was still in the process of being built. Shawn and I had a picnic up there on the deck and enjoyed a brilliant sunset. We had greek salad.

Anyway, there's also a hidden little trail you can take at this point, that takes you to Cox Bay. This is the one we took. "It won't be too muddy", Shawn assured me before hand. Turned out, half of it was under water...and it's obviously a trail hardly anyone uses, because it's much over-grown, and there are many huge logs criss-crossing it that you have to scramble over. We exited (both a little muddier) at the back end of Pacific Sands. The tide was mostly out. There was a fresh, cool breeze. The sky was a patchwork of light and shadow. Moody. But once the sun came out, and brilliant rays shot through the clouds and turned patches of the sea shimmering white-gold. Nothing so refreshing as a trip to the beach!

Afterwards, Shawn dropped me off at the Co-op and I bought green onions, a packet of gravy, and mushrooms for the loco-moco that I'm going to make us for dinner. An aside about the gravy selection...it always takes me a while, because there's so many to choose from. My eye was caught by a particular package, labeled "turkey dindon".  Dindon?! That almost made me choose it right then and there. But I didn't. Moving on...

I met Shawn at the bank, and we are now obviously at home. He's curled up on the bed reading the first Hunger Games book. I LOVE HIM.