Familiar Places in Oceanside

As much as I thrive on the unknown elements of travel there is an equal appreciation (and sometimes longing) for the familiar. There is something about returning to a place where you know what to expect while also knowing as familiar as it may be - every experience will be new.

One of the most familiar (if not THE most familiar) places for me when it comes to travel is Oceanside, California. It has been a familiar destination for most of my life. I didn’t realize exactly how much of my life until doing the math a few months ago - while standing next to my cousin, our toes in the sand, just as we had as little girls.

While the feeling of having our toes in the sand was familiar, the experience was different. As my cousin and I stared out at the ocean, her daughter plopped handfuls of wet sand on the tops of her mother’s feet. No longer the little girls standing in the sand, my cousin told me how she used to love doing the same thing her daughter was doing (and to be honest, we both would probably still be content plopping sand on someone’s feet).

Our family has been coming to the beach since my cousin was her daughter’s age and that brought up a question for us to ponder - how long have we been coming to Oceanside? 

With the “wisdom” of an extra decade, I tried to piece together the timeline of our family’s visits to California. My cousin’s memories of the beach began in Oceanside but mine began further down the coastline, ten years prior.

When I joined the annual trip in 1982, the Gogarty family beach vacations were already in full swing. My grandpa started them when my mom was a teenager and continued when she and her siblings started their own families.

My mom, and aunts and uncles, started their beach trips near the border in Chula Vista. By the time I came around, the family beach vacations had moved a little bit (but not much) further north to the stretches of Silverstrand Beach on Coronado.

Although I don’t remember my first trip at 6 weeks old, I have plenty of memories in the years that followed. I told my cousin how we used to spend the entire day at the beach from noon until long after the sun went down - roasting hot dogs in the fire pits, still wearing our swimsuits under a sweatshirt, and using dry towels as blankets.

I told her about the VW van her parents would drive to the beach and how her parents and siblings took breaks from the sun to grab snacks and naps in the van. This is a novel concept because at Oceanside we stay steps away from the sand at North Coast Village. Her kids (and the rest of the kids in the family) simply walk back to the condo throughout the day. Back in the day though, whatever you packed into the car (whether it was my aunt and uncle’s VW van or our white Buick sedan) was all you had. So, you better make sure there was plenty of food, towels, boogie boards, and sunscreen (which, if my freckles are any indication, I don’t think we were quite as concerned about in the 80s).

While I love Oceanside, part of me misses those early beach days. I have yet to find a California beach with the same fire pits in the sand (they don’t even have them at Silverstrand anymore) and as much as there is beauty in the new experiences as adults, the simplicity of showing up to the beach as a kid is something you can’t replicate.

Despite nostalgia for those early-year experiences, I have just as many memories at Oceanside. Almost thirty years, according to my “beach math.”

After my cousin brought our attention back from the golden flecks in the sand, and while her daughter continued to plop sand on her feet, I started piecing together the timeline of when we moved further up the coastline to Oceanside Beach.

Following those early summers at Silverstrand Beach, we spent two summers in Carlsbad - which I can only remember thanks to the memory of the cute surfer in orange swim trunks that my other two cousins and I had crushes on. Knowing we were old enough to appreciate a cute surfer but not old enough to drive, I figured we were probably about 12. Piecing that together with the summer a few years later, when the same two cousins disappeared for several hours on a long walk to the pier (after we tried on bikinis at a local surf shop knowing that was the closest we would ever get to wearing bikinis on a family vacation). I figured out that we started coming to Oceanside around 1996.

While I personally made it to AN ocean every summer since that first trip to Oceanside - not every year brought me back to Oceanside. Despite that, not much has changed and yet many things have changed. 

The condos at North Coast Village still sit just as they did when we were kids. Except, today our families have invested in the oceanfront units that make it a bit easier to carry chairs and towels to sand each morning. No walking up flights of stairs or taking elevators - where I dropped the room key down the shaft one of those first years. The lush tropical landscaping of tropical flowers and palm trees that tower over the winding path past the pool and koi ponds feel the same every year - even though they have grown and changed just as each of us has. Yet, the familiarity is still there and even though we are not kids anymore, it still feels like it in many ways.

Today, one of my favorite rituals is walking down to Nautical Coffee shop that sits alongside the docks. As I write this, I am sitting in their office area that faces the boats. Another foggy day with a bit of a breeze, teh flags gently sway on the boats. Next to me, is the Nautical Bean coffee company log that says est. 1994. This coffee shop opened just before my first summer in Oceanside, but growing up coffee was not a part of my life so I didn’t even realize it was here until several years ago. Always on the lookout for the best coffee experience it is a regular part of my Oceeanside experience now. 

Next door is another reuglar part of my Oceanside experience. Harbor Fish and Chips. 

… 

Back on the beach, it feels as if I am still a kid … 

My 42 year old body is walking down the beach but inside I am still the little girl who hunted for seashells with my Grandma, mom, aunts and cousins. In the early days, I would find dozens of what we always called unicorn shells. I still don’t knwo what the offical name of htese shesll is called, but they look like unicorn horns and tod this day I have only ever found them on Silverstarand beach. Today though, I find several scallops of different colors and sizes. While the sanddollar is always the ultimate goal, I don’t find a whole one until the last stretch of beach as I head back to where our row of chairs line the sand with boogie boards and surfboards piled on the sand nearby. My mom and uncles walk up a few minutes later and we proceed to have a show and tell of the seashells we found. “Where did you find scallops?!” my mom exclaims which is followed by my uncle being impressed with the (small) abalone shell I was drawn to because of the colors on teh inside. At this moment you couldn’t tell me I was not a 10 year old girl coming back with a sand bucket full of seashell treasures to show off. 

The seashells become the highilgh of the day, as the sun continues to hid behind the fog. I dont’ mind because I have been in Las Vegas that last several weeks for work, so I am enjoying the overcast skies and slightly cooler weather. However, it is odd to have several continuous days of gloom at the beach. The morning fog is typical, but as we all know - it typically burns off by noon to reveal a bright sunny .. 

AGain, I haven’t minded the coolness and overcast except for the lack of sunsets. My favorite place to watch the sunset is over the ocean and it is somethign I look forward to on every trip. While some haze in the sky can often contribute ot hte depth of colors as the sun goes down, when the sky is heavy with fog - without a glimpse of sunlight - sunset does not get seen. I’m still at teh beach though and as my mom’s husband said earlier in the week, even a cloudy day at the baeach is still a day at the beach and that is somethign i can ‘t argue with. 

Toes are still in teh sand, and desire the bitter cold ocean water that if I”m being honest made it a bit hard to breathe - I still jumped in and did a few dives under the waves because i… 

Its been about thirty years and while life changes I dont’ know if the feelings felt at Oceanside will every change.