People who live here year-round complain it’s been too cold this summer. We’ve had foggy days with small slivers of sunshine peeking through. On some days there’s no sunshine.
That is fine by me. I’m loving the cool weather for beach walks. It’s such a contrast to our desert life. Also, the tiny house doesn’t have AC, so it’s better to have cool weather than hot.
I read in the news that Interstate 10 washed out near the border of Arizona and California. We missed wild weather.
I’m hoping the road will be fixed before we drive home. The alternate routes are hours longer! Plus one alternate route closed due to downed power poles and lines.
Maybe we’ll be stuck here at the beach in the tiny town of Summerland.
What has your August weather been like? Is it unusual or more of the same?
We watched a pod of dolphins playing during our afternoon walk.
This morning on our beach walk, I first noticed three signs and yellow tape.
Warning signs posted at the beach.
We stopped to read the signs and a woman approached us wearing a hat that said volunteer for some marine life organization. She said there was a distressed sea lion ahead. It had been resting on the beach behind the signs and yellow tape.
Then when a young woman was walking her pit bull, the dog pulled out of its harness and attacked the sea lion.
The volunteer from the Channel Islands Marine Wildlife Institute told us the sea lion escaped into the ocean. She explained that the sea lion was suffering from Domoic Acid poisoning, which is caused by algae bloom.
My husband said that algae bloom happens every year. Isn’t that a normal thing? Wouldn’t sea lions be used to it?
She said they were inundated with calls about sick sea lions along the coast and that the Domoic Acid poisoning could be fatal. The volunteers were out observing the sea lions from sunrise to sunset along the beaches. Apparently stress could make the illness worse. She was standing on the beach all day to keep people and dogs away from the sick sea lion.
I asked if we could still take our morning walk.
“If you have to,” she answered. “Please stay along the cliffs and as far away from the sea lion as possible.”
We started on our walk, but as we got closer to the sea lion, we turned around. It wasn’t worth it.
We also spotted the young woman with her pit bull walking down a trail to finish their morning walk. She was avoiding the volunteer who was positioned by the signs. The young woman spotted the sea lion in the ocean in front of her and thankfully turned her dog around and headed back up the trail.
If you want to read more about the sea lions and Domoic Acid poisoning, here’s an article from the local news. The article said the Institute is fielding 50 to 100 calls a day.
Who knew that stress was so harmful to sea lions? What are your thoughts about what stress can do to us?
One of my favorite things to do besides taking long beach walks is to sit and read at the beach. One day over the weekend, I found myself alone on the beach without a book. My husband was driving our son to the gym for physical therapy. Our son’s girlfriend had walked to a surf shop to rent a board and wetsuit.
I wanted to get back to the house to pick up the book I’m reading — Shirley Jackson’s “We Have Always Lived in the Castle.” But I was a good three miles away from the house. So I just sat. It was one of the most peaceful afternoons I’ve experienced in a long time. It was too bright to surf on my phone. I couldn’t even read emails.
I watched the pelicans, egrets and sandpipers. I watched the waves. I felt connected to the sea.
Here’s the opening paragraph of the Shirley Jackson book I’m reading:
My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise, I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cap mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.
I read “We Have Always Lived in the Castle” when I was a teenager. My mom had a copy. Then I read it again after college. It’s been at least 20 years since I’ve picked it up. It is still captivating.
But sometimes I just like to sit. I find it beyond relaxing. Watching the waves I find similar to meditation.
I love watching the sunlight play on the waves.
Do you ever find yourself just sitting? Why do you think it’s good for us to be quiet — and not be reading, on our phones or computer? Do you have a book to recommend for my beach vacation?
Waiting in line to get into La Super Rica Taqueria.
I discovered a new food this week. Adobada.
What is adobada? It’s marinated meat (often pork) in a flavorful, chile-based mixture. It’s chopped into chunks and cooked on a hot grill or pan so it chars on the outside and is tender and juicy inside. The taco and burritos I had included a citrusy flavor and chunks of pineapple.
Before we took our son to the airport to fly home to the Bay Area, we stopped at La Super Rica. It’s a taco stand with a line out the door from the time they open to closing. It became famous as Julia Child’s favorite restaurant.
Adobada tacos.
When our son went to UC Santa Barbara he told us about the best Mexican food that we had to try. It was La Super Rica — our favorite Santa Barbara Mexican restaurant for 25 years before he discovered it!
Tamale with cream sauce.
Sunday, we waited 40 minutes to get inside to order at the window. Then we waited longer than than that to get our food. By the time it arrived, I was famished. I had the adobada taco and a chile relleno. It was so delicious, I wolfed it down. The wait was worth it.
The other adobada I had was in a burrito the day before from a liquor store in Carpinteria. They’ve been there for 25 years and we’ve been ordering breakfast burritos from them for that long. We’re trying to convince the owner to open a store in Arizona! Our son introduced us to the adobada burrito and we’re hooked. The line isn’t nearly as long as La Super Rica, either.
The wait at La Super Rica reminded me of waiting for pizza where our kids live. Although my son’s girlfriend commented that the Cheeseboard’s line goes around the block and has about 100 people and La Super Rica’s line is only about 20 deep. I wrote about waiting in line for pizza HERE.
View of La Super Rica’s patio.
How long are you willing to wait for a taco? How about a pizza? What other food would you wait for?
Here are a few photos and videos from our Southern California beach vacation.
This is our favorite beach for walks, swimming, and hanging out. It’s also home to Kevin Costner, Ashton Kutcher and at one time Ellen DeGeneres.
The beach below our Vrbo. I love watching the dog herding its horse.Social distancing.A mural on the side of a building downtown Carpinteria.Beach wedding. The groom made the archway for his bride.
We had only been in the Vrbo for two hours when we lost one key. Fortunately, we started with two keys in the lockbox.
The key got lost during unpacking. I had placed the key on top of the dresser. My husband complained about things I was stacking on the dresser while finding a home for them. I was sure he had knocked the key off onto the floor or behind the dresser while he moved some of my stuff.
I was so upset. We were supposed to go to our friends’ house for dinner and we were thirty minutes late — before we realized the key was missing.
We looked in the drawers, under the dresser, under the bed, in the kitchen and bathroom. I texted my son that we had lost one key already. There was one in the lockbox and to please keep the one remaining key there when he arrived later that night. I didn’t want to lose both.
After a delicious dinner of chicken mole with our friends in their backyard, I came home and continued the search.
I finally found the key! My husband had knocked the key off the dresser just as I suspected. He managed to land the key in my dresser drawer — into my white shorts back pocket! Husbands!
What has your wife, husband or friend done that truly amazed you — good or bad?
We planned two road trips for this summer. One to Park City, Utah and the other to a tiny town on the California coast called Summerland. I wrote about the Park City trip HERE. On our way to Summerland, we stopped to visit my 90-year-old dad at the halfway point. Then we headed to a Vrbo near the beach.
We’ll be returning to this beach cottage for the seventh summer.
It’s tough to decide if it’s best to drive straight through to our final destination — or stop along the way. The way we drove it was two days of driving four and a half hours each day.
I think if it wasn’t for my dad living four and a half hours along the way, we wouldn’t stop but try to push through.
An hour from our destination, we stopped in Filmore at the Filmore Historical Museum where they have the Hinckley House — a home that was originally owned by my husband’s relatives. One was an artist, Lawrence Hinckley, that I wrote about HERE.
I’ll share more about the museum trip on another day complete with photos.
Right now we’re waiting for the Vrbo previous renters to leave and the house to be cleaned. That could be a whole other story — since they are hours late leaving. What if they don’t leave? I’ve heard of such things.
When you take a road trip, do you like to make the trip in one day? Or do you like to take your time along the journey? Is it about the journey or the destination?
