Another week, another turn of the crank. I’m outbound, and more so than usual, going from ferries to flights to freeways for a busy week in California.
Non-stop motion seems to be the way of things, though, at least for the moment – our family made our intra-island move to our long-term home here on the 1st, started school 48 hours later, and then piled into a small flotilla of boats for an all-school trip to Orcas and San Juan.
“All-school” was 9 kids. And ‘field trip’ was 3 days of camping, cooking and curriculum. Marine Studies are a core theme for the semester; we started one day assembling a whale skeleton in The Whale Museum, and ended by spotting a humpback whale surface at sunset. Bit of luck with that last bit, sure, but what mattered to me was seeing firsthand how these teachers really can work a one-room-schoolhouse class, tailoring the instruction and the work across such a range of ability. That part was all skill.
The marine studies continued over the weekend (in my absence, alas) as the school gathered by the county dock for a seine. I watched vicariously through video and pics from Azure – Em got lucky and found a sculpin, which was neat, albeit not so pretty in person as on Ballast Point bottles.
* * *
And now it’s Tuesday afternoon. Which means my kids must be in the water, again, earning their PE credits sailing and kayaking.
I’m on an Amtrak. Peeling slowly out of Union Station, and accelerating south, past graffiti walls and empty aqueducts. Used to really like staring at this stuff out the car window, when I was a kid.
Still do.
Non-stop motion!
