“No offense, mom, but you don’t look like a California girl because you don’t wear the right kind of bathing suit,” Levi said, referring to the barely there excuse for a bikini most of the girls were sporting on Moonlight Beach during a recent trip to Encinitas, about 40 minutes north of San Diego. “I don’t like girls my own age, but I like these girls!” He made me listen to “California Gurls” by Katy Perry on repeat for our entire trip, belting out the lyrics, “California girls are unforgettable, Daisy Dukes bikinis on top,” from the back seat of our rental car. Every year, I take Levi on a last-hurrah-of-summer trip before school starts.
This year we returned to Southern California, taking advantage of the direct flight from Aspen to LAX that departs at 7 a.m. and lands before 9 a.
m., so you can have your toes in the sand before lunch, even if there are delays. Knowing I can fly direct from Aspen to the West Coast assuages the sudden but desperate need to see the ocean that hits at least once a year.
If enough time goes by, I can feel it in my bones, an ache for that endless expanse of water; for a candy-colored sky where the sun dissolves into the liquid horizon; for salt-curly hair; for bohemian sundresses swirling around tanned ankles and checkered Vans. We stayed in a small studio close to the beach in downtown Encinitas, where not much has changed in the 30 years since I lived there. I found the same falafel burger at Roxy’s, the Pacific Roll at.