adventures in life

Kayak Point

By loraraeccoon / October 2, 2020 / traditions, weekend tripping / Leave a comment

Yurt year four. Every September—August once—we hit up the Yurt Village at Kayak Point. It’s an annual trip we go on with our old neighbors and friends, and it’s always a really fun time. Last year I missed out. I was having pelvic pain from being eight months pregnant and the idea of walking to the beach—and even restroom—from the Yurt Village sounded miserable. Brian ended up taking the kiddos on his own and I had a glorious weekend home alone, with back pain. This year, the pregnant belly is gone and Maive yurted for the first time.

Yurt kiddos!

This year we scored the yurt with the deck. Not that we even used the deck, but this yurt has been my goal the last two years. When we booked our yurts in 2019, the deck yurt was available. In the five minutes we texted to determine which weekend, the damn deck yurt was booked. Haha. Someone else was booking at the exact.same.time. In January, for a September weekend. Crazy. But this year, deck. I like that it’s in the back corner of the Village. The deck is a bonus.

The yurt with a deck. Score!

We’ve figured out arriving Saturday morning works best for us. We eat breakfast at home, pack up, and head out. Last year we packed lunches. This year we decided to order pizza for pick up, about 30 minutes from the yurt. This worked out SO well. Brian called at 10:30am right when they opened, we picked up the pizzas at 11am, and were at the yurt by 11:30am. The kiddos ate lunch while Brian unloaded the car. This is the only negative about arriving Saturday morning… it’s a ton of work for one night. But totally worth it. We lunched, settled in the yurt, and left for the beach.

The trail to the beach from the Yurt Village. It’s about a quarter-mile.

The beach is about a quarter-mile walk down a hill, adjacent to the Yurt Village. There is a playground area, pier, and the beach down there. The kiddos wanted to play a bit first before heading to the rocky beach. They played. Maive used a playground swing for the first time. Pandemic baby, she doesn’t get out much. Then, the beach! I love the beach, even with rocks. I mean, it’s no sandy beach like in California or on the Oregon Coast, but it’s a beach and beautiful. There is driftwood galore on this beach. I’d love to know where it all came from and how long it’s been there. But driftwood doesn’t talk so I can only wonder.

Playground play.

Beach!

Beach Laine and Saige.

Baby being Baby with the different looks, haha.

Beach Blaise found a cool cave area to explore.

The girls found a driftwood fort and quickly claimed it as theirs.

Maive! It was windy.

It was super windy. Maive looked cold and she was due for a bottle. Brian—with Maive on his back—and I started back up the hill to the yurt. Saige and Baby came with us while Blaise and Laine stayed at the beach with our friends. Back at the yurt, it was only 1:30pm but felt like it should have been 5pm. We had already packed in a ton for the day.

The others made it back to the Yurt Village about 45 minutes later. The kiddos got down to business: they climbed the tree. There is this tree in the Yurt Village that is a kiddo favorite. The first year we went, we happened to book the yurt right with this tree right outside. They have climbed that sucker ever since. It’s a great climbing tree. Three years ago, there was a family with two boys, maybe five and seven. That mom was not into letting her kiddos climb trees. They boys kept asking and she said something like, “No, it’ll hurt the tree, and we don’t want to hurt trees.” Interesting reasoning. I guess we hurt trees. Haha.

Tree climber Blaise.

Playground, check. Beach, check. Climbing tree, check. Time for marshmallows to hold the kiddos over until dinner. Anything goes when we’re at the Yurt Village. Brian started a fire and the kiddos quickly roasted marshmallows. Not long after, Brian started in on the burgers. We work it so our family covers Saturday dinner, and our friends cover Sunday breakfast. It’s worked well. We typically do veggie burgers. Their family is mostly vegetarian and then there’s me in our family, so to streamline the dinner making process, everyone gets a veggie patty. Score this year, Costco is selling the Beyond Burger patties in bulk. Brian has already been sold on the Impossible patties on the rare occasions we eat out, and now he seems sold on the Beyond patties.

Marshmallow kiddos. Saige found the chocolate.

There was a large group of 20-somethings, maybe 15 of them? And they basically took over the communal cooking area in the Yurt Village. I’m sure they would have moved aside to let us use one of the grills. Instead, Brian decided to just cook them over our yurt’s fire pit; we already had a fire going from roasting marshmallows. It worked out well. We burgered and cleaned, and then headed back down to the beach.

Veggie burger kiddos.

Yurting Maive with one of her biggest fans. This kid is LOVED.

It was so calm! And super dead. I think we passed one dog walker and a young couple. It felt like we had the beach to ourselves. The younger kiddos and dads went to the playground. The older kiddos and us moms walked down the beach. When we were there earlier, it was high tide so the beach was only a few feet—we couldn’t have walked down as far as we did if we had wanted to. It was low tide this time and we walked all the way to where it curves, and the public beach ends and turns into a private beach for the homes on the water.

Evening calm.

Beach Blaise and Laine.

Beach finds. The huge chunk of clay was cool. The whole wall looking up was clay and wet, and some was falling off. It didn’t look very stable. And this driftwood we had to climb over to continue walking down the beach. It was slippery.

These rocks with barnacles! I found the one that looks like it has eyes and Laine found the smiley face one. Barnacles kind of creep me out but these were cute.

Sunset.

It was also sunset. So gorgeous. I can’t imagine not living on the coast. Even if we aren’t at the water daily, we see it often enough. I totally took for granted seeing the Pacific Ocean almost daily all those years we lived on the Central Coast. I’m digging the idea of eventually moving to one of the San Juan Islands, maybe when the kiddos are older. We can enjoy the quiet and clam of island living with views of the water, but still near a major city.

S’mores.

Saturday ended with another round of roasting marshmallows, making s’mores. Maive didn’t make it to s’mores; she tapped out in my arms sitting in front of the fire. The kiddos played tag and hide-and-seek in the dark, using headlamps before we all turned in for the night.

It was a tight fit in the yurt. There is a bunk bed with a twin top and full bottom, and a futon that turns into a full-size bed. We all fit, and it worked out… even though we stretched the five person limit. Two kiddos equal one person, right?! But next year I decided we’re booking two yurts. The one with the deck and the one with the climbing tree out front. Maybe we can put the kiddos in one, and Brian and I can take the other (with Maive). We’ll see.

Breakfast burritos kicked off Sunday morning. Our friends make Sunday breakfast and the burritos were so good! Dare I admit that I had never eaten a breakfast burrito before?! I’m a fan. We all grubbed. The plan after breakfast was to pack up and hike the Trail to Success, and then hit the beach one last time before calling it a weekend. And that’s exactly how the morning went. It was a lovely end to another yurt weekend.