by Claudia Bushee

Created on: May 08, 2008   Last Updated: May 15, 2008

Our family heads for the beach in October. We stay in a rental house overlooking the Monterey Bay in Aptos, California. The prices for beach rentals are less costly in the fall and the hoards of sunbathers have left the beach for job and school, allowing the autumn beachcomber a vacated stretch of sand and surf. We take our golden retriever who barrels down the beach unencumbered by leash or by rules. Our college-aged kids still look forward to this annual trip. When they were little, we let them miss a day of school. We called that a "mental health" day and indeed it was and is.

In Northern California, October is the changeable month. It may be warm, even balmy, but it can change dramatically, with wind and rain suddenly turning a sunny day to a stormy one. But no matter, the vistas over the ocean are dramatic with orange and fuchsia sunsets or wild brush-stroked looking clouds hovering over the water. And the water! The waves may be minimal, gently rocking the sand. Or they can be massive and thick, nearly gray in appearance. I can never get over the power and strength the surfers who tackle these waves possess.

I feel renewed after a trip to the beach in the fall. There is some thought that the negative ions of the water increase oxygen to our brains and that is why there is a heightened sense of well-being that comes with time spent at the shore. Whatever the reason for bliss, I hold dear our autumn sojourns to the ocean.

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