Stick Beach

My friend Valerie recently invited our family to join hers for a picnic supper at Stick Beach in Hercules. It was a warm, sunny, Saturday evening, without the usual windy Bay Area fog to make such outings cold and miserable. So we loaded up the car and headed down to this beach along the San Pablo Bay.  Stick Beach isn't really a beach by normal beach standards. There is some sand and gravel and when the tide is out there's a whole lotta mud. Which is like winning the jackpot for toddlers! The other woo-hoo thing was that beach runs right along the train tracks which made for lots of up close looks at the passing trains. I always find it sweet how little kids just love big moving objects! And big kids too! I have a fascination with freight trains so I was as tickled as the girls to see the many fleeting trains.

 

Amara looked like a little diva waiting to be served her dinner!

Havana wasn't loving the beach so much.
She eventually talked Don into taking the playground nearby.

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Amara and Eli couldn't get enough of the water and mud.

And of course, each passing train got a personal hello.

Downward facing dog, mud style.

The only thing about the beach that I didn't like, and which I actually was left with a deep sadness, was how much trash was along the coastline and in the water. There was alot of (broken) glass, plastic bottles and other garbage that had clearly floated in. It breaks my heart that we humans are so mindless and disconnected about where we put our trash (or where we don't-garbage cans) and how we continue to produce things that are not bio-degradable. So as we drove home I talked a bit with the girls about the importance of honoring the earth, enjoying her wonderful playground and putting trash where it belongs.
And when we got home, the girls got hosed off before they got scrubbed down in the tub! The fact that they were so dirty was a telltale sign of how much fun they had had!

Havana having fun before she got bored and longed for the playground.