Birthday Memories- Morro Bay Family Reunion 2010

Yep, today is my birthday. Normally I love birthdays, but last year’s August 12 was spectacularly awful for me… retake after retake of deafening blank bullets on the indoor set of an unexpectedly long 16+ hour TV show shoot, missing my late evening birthday dinner with Kathy (who first got stuck on a MAX train that was held up for a death on the tracks, followed by riding a bus that was held up by a hit bicyclist, followed by an hours long wait for me outside the set for hours, before finally leaving for home hungry and Garthless), and capping off the final minutes of my birthday night with a particularly unfortunate grub run (complete with getting hit by not one, but two clearly unwelcome “romantic” advances) all by myself in downtown Portland. Worst. Birthday. Ever.



My one-week earlier birthday celebration last year, however, was worthy of an honorable mention on my Top 5 Recent Trips countdown. And even though my monthly Top 5 countdown is on hiatus until September November, I couldn’t resist trotting out a few memories from last year’s family reunion in California.

The same week that I returned via motorcycle/bus/train/car from our 2010 Banks Lake trip, my parents picked me up in their RV from work at PDX for the drove down to California’s Morrow Bay State Park for our family reunion.




My mom’s side of the family includes ministers, teachers, and just all around good people (and I dearly love my dad’s side of the family, too!). When you have a family as wonderful as mine, every moment spent together is a highlight. However, a few things did stand out from that week:


Spending the day with my amazing cousin, Jefferson: buying camp supplies in town, munching pizza... ... and shedding campfire smoke-induced tears together as we prepared the tri-tips for dinner



The impossibly scrumptious fire-grilled food


Late night chats by the campfire


Hitting the town of Morro Bay with the cousins, enjoying coffee together, and shopping for threads and shades at the TKD Surf Shop… By the way, thanks for buying me that TDK birthday hoodie, Brian! It keeps me warm on my camping trips and those chilly morning commutes to PDX when I have my Jeep’s soft top off (like this morning).



Watching the scenery blur past me on the Amtrak ride home, from San Louis Obispo to Portland...

… Where the amusing social experiment of seating complete strangers next to each other in a dining car ended up landing me some new friends! The one in the glasses is Fram.

Those are the birthday memories that I want to remember from last year.