I make no bones about it: I’m a morning person. All my life, so far as I can remember, I’m up once I see the light, and it’s almost impossible for me to get back to sleep. As I get older, I seem to need less sleep than before, and I get up earlier and earlier.

This morning, my son Evan also was up pretty early, and rather than have him fuss and make noise and possibly wake up the whole house (none of whom share my penchant for early mornings), I put Evan in the baby backpack and hit the streets. I needed to visit the Wells Fargo down at State Park and Soquel to make some deposits and get some cash for the World’s Biggest Garage Sale today, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to do that and get some exercise and fresh air while I was at it.

After we hit the bank, I noticed that the Pacific Coffee Roasting company was open, so Evan and I cruised over for a non-fat latte for me and an Odwalla blueberry smoothie-thing for him. Evan started missing his mommy around this time, so he got back in the backpack and we headed back home down Soquel Drive.

I love the mornings for how cool and quiet they are. It’s nice to walk down Soquel Drive without the roar of the passing traffic. There were a few people out this morning, going for walks like Evan and I, and it was lovely to say hi, hello, good morning, share a smile, and hear Evan say “hi” too in his little baby voice.

Almost back home, we came across a fireman raising the flags at the Aptos Fire Station. It was pretty cool to watch him tend to one of his daily duties in the calm and still of the morning. Don’t know why, it just was.