Category Archives: Beach

Friday Beach Views

Posted on by
26

During last weekend, we watched a young boy building this unique sandcastle in front of Ashton Kutcher’s house. I swear as we walked by, I saw Ashton on the sand with friends playing with their kids. That’s my story. And I’m sticking to it.

This house is at the opposite end of the beach. A couple years ago our daughter and Waffles the pug joined us for a week. This house had the beach roped off and no trespassing signs around it. Waffles, of course, went inside the guy’s “private beach” and the owner yelled at our daughter when she went in to fetch Waffles. My husband explained to the man that there are NO PRIVATE BEACHES in California. The beaches belong to all of us. Now the ropes are down and there are two no trespassing signs on his house.

I made burgers with lettuce, Farmer Fred’s amazing tomatoes and avocados from a friend’s tree. Yium!

I think these shore birds are Plovers? They don’t have the long beaks that sandpipers do. They are standing in front of the house I mentioned above. I hope the owner doesn’t get mad at them!

A colder, foggier day at high tide.

Friends invited us over for dinner and we started the evening with this charcuterie and wine on their Duffy electric-powered boat. They live in Ventura in the Keys and we cruised around the inlets before dinner.

This is a photo from the Duffy website. I forgot to get a picture of the boat they keep at their dock, but this is what it looks like.

Below is a short video from our evening puttering around the neighborhood. What a fun night with friends. Thanks for coming along for the ride.

What plans do you have for the long weekend?

Fresh, fresh and more fresh

Posted on by
30

Our first trip to the Santa Barbara Farmer’s Market was a huge success. In fact it made my day!

Saturdays mean a trip to Santa Barbara for fresh fruits and veggies. Thursday evenings we head to Carpinteria to visit many of the same vendors. What an abundance to have farm fresh produce twice a week! I can stock up and never run out.

I wrote about Santa Barbara’s Farmer’s Market two years ago HERE. I think the photos are better in the previous post, so you may want to take a look. I was too burdened down with produce to take great photos Saturday.

Photos from the market:

Our favorite vendor we call Farmer Fred. He’s friends with two couples we know in Santa Barbara. We went to a BBQ with him and his family last summer. He’s got a personality that doesn’t stop. He loves bantering and joking with his customers. As the close of the market approaches, he gives away produce. Two older Latino women came and he gave them two boxes of peppers. We asked what they were doing with them.

“They’re making tamales,” was all Farmer Fred told us.

They may be tamale vendors or making them for church. In any case, Fred helps them out.

While I shopped around the market, my husband hung out with Farmer Fred.

A woman was helping Fred that we’ve met in years’ past. She weighed produce for a customer and handed them their bag of tomatoes. She asked, “How much do we owe you?” We all laughed because at that point Fred was giving away produce.

We’re also on a first-name basis with our favorite stone-fruit farmer, Todd. He has 10 acres in Arizona he wants to sell us.

I bought the white peach, Flavor King and Dapple Dandy (tastes like candy) pluots from Todd. What a treat!

What I made for dinner:

Roasted round zucchini that I sliced and tossed in olive oil. After roasting, I sprinkled it with a Mexican chile seasoning.

I bought bone marrow from a vendor at the Farmer’s Market who was selling beef and pork. Bone marrow was listed under OFFAL. I roasted it in the oven at 425 degrees for 20 minutes, along with the zucchini. Unfortunately, the top bone lost most of it’s marrow while cooking. But what was left was delicious! I served the veggies and bone marrow with chips, salsa and guacamole made from avocados a friend gave us. Yum!

Do you have a farmer’s market near you? What are your favorite things to buy?

It’s a dog’s life

Posted on by
42

A new friend at the beach bringing a ball to my husband.

After our evening beach walk and swim, we were relaxing in beach chairs watching the waves. Suddenly, a small dog ran to my husband and dropped a ball at his feet. We looked around for his owners, but there was nobody close by.

My husband threw the ball. The speedy little pup raced after the ball and ran back to us, dropping the ball at my feet. It was my turn.

The pup alternated between the two of us for 30 minutes, never tiring of chasing the ball.

The dog is waiting in anticipation for the ball to be thrown. If you look in the ocean there is a couple out there.

Eventually the couple who were body surfing in the waves came onshore.

“Is this your dog?” my husband called out to them.

“No, he’s yours now,” the man replied. We all laughed. The dog trotted over excitedly to his rightful owners.

The dogs on the beach are so entertaining to watch. There’s a man who lives a few houses away from Kevin Costner, who walks his black lab every morning with a tennis ball launcher. That dog is so excited and jumps and circles, crying for the ball to be thrown. He runs back and forth chasing and retrieving the ball for an entire hour walk. We watched a pair of Vizlas chasing balls from their owner’s tennis ball launcher, leaping to catch the balls in the air before they hit the sand. Then there are dogs who pick up sticks two to three times the size of their bodies and proudly trot them down the beach.

Here’s a video of our new friend racing after the ball:

If you have a dog, do they like to swim, chase after balls or carry sticks?

What other creatures are as happy as a dog at the beach?

More Beach Views

Posted on by
34

Moon rising at Carpinteria State Beach.

We’re enjoying our beach time. We start the day with a morning walk and end with the same. In the evenings, we visit the beach with our towels and chairs. After our walk, my husband swims while I do my favorite thing — read a book at the beach.

Every day there is something new to see. Here are a few more pics:

I’ve complained about Mexican food in Arizona. I haven’t found anything with the same flavors I’m used to in SoCal. This is a dinner prepared by our friends in Carpinteria. Chicken mole, rice, beans and sauteed peppers. Delicious! We’re going back for leftovers!

Low tide standing near Kevin Costner’s estate. I’ve never seen the tide so low that we could walk on this part of the beach. It’s usually under water. Around the corner of the point in the distance is our beach. Well, the beach a few blocks from our VRBO.

This is the view looking back from Costner’s estate at the beach where we take our daily walks.

More incredible Mexican food. Al Pastor tacos from Kim’s Liquor a mile from our VRBO. What’s interesting, is most liquor/convenience stores have kitchens with amazing Mexican food to go. Maybe I should let Guy Fieri of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives know about this?

Sandpipers lined the beach this morning. I don’t have any quail at the beach, like at home, but there are plenty of sandpipers, pelicans and gulls.

My daughter once said her favorite comfort food she grew up with was Mexican food (which I do not make.) I thought she’d say one of my specialities like pan friend sole, chicken and dumplings or oxtail soup. Nope.

There are certain flavors and cuisines served in different areas of the country and the world that we enjoy and love.

What’s your is your favorite Mexican food or comfort food?

Vacation Rhythm

Posted on by
24

This is the beach where we like to take our morning and evening walks. The white house at the end is Keven Costner’s estate.

I’m getting into “vacation rhythm” as Vicki from Victoria Ponders said her dad called it.

The ocean is so peaceful. I like nothing better than to sit on the beach with a good book in the evenings, enjoying the dogs frolicking in and out of the water, chasing tennis balls and sticks. I’ve never seen anyone of any animal happier than dogs on the beach.

I also stopped during a morning walk to watch surf camp. This was the older group — maybe young teens. I was amazed as every one of them could catch a wave. The younger kids were sitting under pop-up tents watching and learning from the older surfers.

According to my friend who lives nearby, this home belongs to George Lucas. I read that he tore down an existing modern masterpiece to build his Cape Cod. Below was the former home by a famous architect I’ve never heard of. Oh well. It’s his property to do whatever he wants with it.

This is the beach below our VRBO. It’s a beautiful view but the beach smells oily and there’s a sheen of oil on the water. So we drive two miles to the pristine beach where the celebrities live.

This was one of the teen surfer’s I stopped to watch.

Do you enjoy the beach? Do you swim in the ocean, surf or boogey board?

Do you like the beach or mountains more?

“I want to get away…”

Posted on by
29

Nine-month old Nina hanging outside in our friends’ backyard.

It was an arduous few days, but we’re on our way to getting settled into the cottage at the beach.

We packed a day early. My husband magically managed to fit into our car all our stuff — his office equipment, our suitcases, cooler and bags of stuff I didn’t want to buy on vacation, like condiments, paper products and our Keurig and coffee.

We hit the road early and dropped in on two clients, one for lunch as we passed through our old hometown.

Then we met long-time friends for dinner in their hometown. They were celebrating their 45th anniversary and we got to treat them. We hadn’t seen them in at least 10 years. It was so much fun to catch up and we talked late into the night.

We ended up driving close to six hours on day one. Day two was a little easier with only three hours to drive. Strangely, those three hours seemed to take all day long!

Then arriving at the cottage, we spent hours unpacking and getting organized, grocery shopping etc. I slept that night like the dead.

Our first morning began with a beach walk with our friends and Nina, the rottie. They invited us over for omelettes after the walk.

View from our friends’ backyard.

Now it’s time to relax! One challenge for me is we have more friends in our vacation area than we do in our new state of Arizona. Through COVID, I got used to having lots of downtime. I need to be balanced with our friends here and not over schedule our social life.

The last few days reminded me of Lenny Kravitz song “Fly Away.”

Do you need to have downtime in your weeks, too? Or can you be super social and enjoy it?

Almost beach time

Posted on by
28
beach time
It’s almost beach time.

Soon, we’ll be making a nine-hour drive to our beach vacation in California. It will be our seventh year renting the VRBO cottage.

I will admit, I’m a little anxious over the trip. I think it’s because of how things turned out last August. It wasn’t exactly a relaxing vacation with our DIL getting diagnosed with cancer. Our son and DIL planned a last-minute wedding prior to surgery that was cancelled due to COVID. Later, they were able to move ahead with the wedding. At first, they didn’t want people flying in bringing germs, since she was beginning chemo. Then our son really wanted us there, but we couldn’t get flights to make it on time.

It was an extremely stressful time with lots of waiting, questions and prayers. I wrote about it HERE.

The last week of our vacation, friends that we have in the area all got COVID. We left a couple days early, because it seemed like the safe and sane thing to do.

This year I’m reading that Arizona has one of the lowest COVID rates, while California has one of the highest.

The cat sitter is lined up. The next door neighbor is watching our house. Time to pack and hope for a peaceful, relaxing and rejuvenating beach vacation.

Do you find vacations to be relaxing or stressful? Why?