I love a beach town.

And here, in Morro Bay, California, I’m in heaven.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in Hawaii, where every town is a beach town. Maybe it’s because I’m an old hippie at heart. Maybe it’s because sun and surf are natural de-stressors.

But I can just feel myself sigh when there is a dusting of sand across the road.

Morro Bay is our first stop in a big loop from Arizona, up the California coast, visiting family in Washington state, into Canada for our annual reunion with friends from our year at Stanford, across to Illinois for Tom’s 50^thhigh school reunion, then back to Arizona

Usually, we’ll meander along, never driving more than a few hours to our next destination, but because Phoenix, our departure point, is surrounded by miles and miles and miles of hotter-than-hell desert, we determined to make it to the coast in one day.

This challenged our usual sluggish preparation, requiring us to actually be ready to leave at the crack of dawn. No last minute packing, no last grocery stop, no dumping and filling our tanks on the way out of town. Just up with the 4:30 a.m. alarm, ice into the cooler, pillows into the van and off we go.

Before sundown, we were seeing the Pacific Ocean peeking out through the fog, and I was feeling my bliss. About 11 hours after leaving the driveway, we parked in our reserved spot just over the dunes from the beach and listened to the seagulls as we drifted off to sleep.

Walking to town the next day, we ran into Ralph, a local who moved to Morro Bay in 1972. He came with a girl who was going to college, and never left. I had stopped him to ask if he knew the name of a plant with lovely pink flowers. He didn’t, but Tom recognized his Chicago accent.

“South Side,” Ralph said, with a smile. He was walking his Toto-look-alike dog named Jackie, and we shared our thoughts on the changing area (there’s now a fence and signs for beach restoration where he used to drive his truck and let his dogs run), real estate and contractors (he’s fixing up a house he’s owned for decades to sell), kids (he has two, and he’s proud of them), journalism (like us, he worked for a newspaper), teaching (he was also a high school teacher), the teamsters (his work in Illinois), parents (his dad loved him but didn’t show his emotions) and life (isn’t it interesting). I think it’s the beach-town vibe that allows us to talk so intimately to someone we met by chance.

We wandered on toward the marina, where pleasure boats bobbed in the tide, sea lions barked, and people ate seafood at picnic tables on the pier. Tom bought a cinnamon roll and some smoked black cod. I found a funny T-shirt for our son, Nate, and laughed at the silly googly-eyed creatures at The Shell Shop.

The next day we walked the opposite way on the beach, away from the pier, along miles of sand flecked with black, past sandpipers skittering in the white foam and long-billed curlews poking the sand for tiny crabs, whose carcasses litter the tide’s edge. We walked and walked and walked, listening to the waves, the wind and the bird cries. As we left the beach, two cyclists pointed out a beautiful osprey perched on a light pole. They shared their binoculars so we could get up close and personal.

We ate sweet potato enchiladas and red snapper tacos at the Taco Palace and slept with the foghorn.

Next stop: one of my favorite beach towns: Carmel-by-the-Sea.