Day Eight—Sunday, May 27, 2018
We woke up early to go to 9 AM Mass at St. Anne’s Catholic Church, a parish of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter in San Diego. The church was packed, but a good usher managed to seat us. It was nice to assist at Mass after a week of being in the wilderness—it is somewhat like being a pioneer I suppose.
After mass we set out for Coronado Island to find coffee, pastries, and the ocean. We sat on the beach with huge chocolate chip muffins, and then had all but the professor’s first feel of the Pacific Ocean. The kids played in and out of the ocean as the waves lapped at their toes.
One of the professor’s philosophy friends invited out family to join his for a lovely brunch and I think the kids enjoyed each other as much as the adults did. It was wonderful to spend the afternoon with like-minded Catholic people. The N. family is one that we would love to live closer to, but alas, half the country separates us!
We went with them to the first Franciscan California Mission of San Diego to inaugurate the pilgrimage portion of our trip. Then we had a picnic supper in Balboa Park. It is interesting to think about the Franciscans building their missions, baptizing, and spreading the Gospel over 200 years ago. While the churches in Europe are even older it is neat to see a Spanish style church in America.
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I was surprised the first time I heard that the virtue of modesty in dress does not just deal with covering our bodies, but it also has to do with wearing the appropriate clothing for the occasion. For example, a swimsuit is appropriate for a beach, pool, or backyard sprinkler time, but not for church, the orchestra, or a restaurant. And in our case, perhaps our Sunday Mass clothes were not ideal for the beach. Having appropriate clothing is just as important for camping.
We camped in a variety of temperatures, and since you are always outside, some mornings you wake up freezing and want pants and a sweater. But as the day goes on you are warm and want shorts and a t-shirt. Here is a list of clothes we had for each person of our family—we planned for laundry at least every five days:
- Hiking shoes with good treads (all sprayed with tick-repellent permethrin before the trip—more on that later)
- Sandals and church shoes
- 2 long pants pairs jeans
- 4 skirts/shorts
- 6 short sleeve shirts
- 2 sweaters
- 5 changes of undergarments
- 5 pairs of socks
- 2 long sleeve PJs
- 2 short sleeve PJs
- Knit hats
- Sunday church outfit
- Rain jacket
- Hat for hiking
- Swimsuit
- Towel
Everyone also packed their basic toiletry necessities, obviously, and we brought laundry detergent and quarters. This set up of clothes work really well. I think we were only cold one or two mornings, but once the sun rose higher, we were fine. The goal was to keep it as basic as possible. The kids clothes all fit in one large suitcase and the professor and I shared a medium suitcase. We use the rolling clothes method so the kids’ clothing was packed in 4 rows, one for each of them and was easy for them to find. And that is about it for clothing!
Tomorrow I will start in on how we did meals.
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