A seagull found the perfect perch on a rooftop at the beach.
I have taken many photos and videos I want to share from sea lions to beach birds, beach and harbor views, the farmer’s market and fish tacos. I think I’ll be posting photos and videos from this vacation after we return home. In the meantime, here are a few photos and videos of wildlife.
We went to dinner by boat the other night and saw sea lions lounging on docks. There’s a little glare from the boat’s window in this pic.
I’ve never seen Mallards in the ocean before. Below is a flock of terns taking off.
Lone pelican floating in the waves.
Ducks waddling on the shore.
Sea Lions upset because we woke them up.
Pelicans in flight.
My favorite of the photos and videos on this post is the last one of pelicans flying low over the ocean.
What’s your favorite?
This reminds me of Ogden Nash and his famous Pelican limerick my dad used to read to us when we were young:
A wonderful bird is the pelican. His bill can hold more than his belican. He can hold in his beak Enough food for a week, But I’m damned if I see how the helican.
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?
I’m not in a good mood today. So I thought writing about and posting cute puppy pics would help.
Our next door neighbor is a single guy who loves his Malamutes. He’s always owned them. About a month ago, he knocked on our door sobbing and asked for my husband to help him get his dog into his car. He had decided it was time to say good-bye.
He asked my husband if he was making the right decision.
My husband looked at the dog laying on the floor, who was unable to stand, but its tail was thumping on the ground.
“Yes, you are making the right decision.”
Since that fateful day, we’ve seen our neighbor in his yard, watering plants during our early morning walk. He’s often in tears and apologizes to us.
This past weekend, we helped him with a puppy contract. I printed it out, he signed it, I scanned it and emailed to him.
His puppy Emma arrived from Canada a few days later.
She is adorable, loving and so darn cute! I’m so thrilled for our neighbor and that I’ll get to see this cutie on a daily basis.
So why am I in a bad mood?
For one thing, the pit bull was out walking today in violation of orders of quarantining for 10 days in the house. No muzzle. She was being walked by a man who said he didn’t care about the quarantine and ended our short conversation by calling my husband a prick.
Didn’t exactly get my day going in the right direction. But then I came home to see Emma and neighbor in front of our house.
My daughter and me in the backyard of a house we used to rent in Laguna Beach.
We rented a house in Laguna Beach to escape the high temperatures of Palm Springs in the summertime. We rented with another family from Memorial weekend to Labor day, splitting the summer in half.
The family who owned the house were school teachers. They took off to Alaska each summer as rangers.
I was worried the first time I visited the house. The backyard dropped off into a canyon. There were railroad ties between the lawn and a cliff. Having a two-year old son, I was worried the yard was too dangerous.
The owner laughed and said she raised three boys in that house and there was never an issue.
Me and my son at the beach in Laguna.
I’ll never forget the first time we rented the house. We told our son we were going to the beach. He grabbed a shovel and bucket and said, “Let’s go!” He was headed to the edge of the lawn and railroad ties, where there was a view of the ocean.
“No!” I stopped him. “We have to drive to the beach.”
Later that summer, I couldn’t find the T.V. remote control. My husband worked in Palm Springs during the weekdays and I was alone with my son except for weekends.
I was six months pregnant with my daughter at the time.
“It’s down there!” my son said pointing to the cliff dropping to the canyon.
“What?” I asked.
“I threw it down there,” my son said, pointing.
I strapped him in his stroller before I ventured into the canyon. I made my way over the railroad ties, clinging onto shrubs for dear life, as I scrambled along the steep incline. Needless to say I was a wreck by the time I made it back up the steep cliff into the backyard. No, I didn’t find the remote.
My son seemed fascinated watching me from the safety of his stroller.
I pushed my son in his stroller into the house, unbuckled him and collapsed on the sofa.
My son joined me on the sofa and fetched the remote control from under a throw pillow.
“Here it is!” he said.
My kids at the Laguna Beach house, sitting on the hearth wearing sofa arm protectors as hats.
To this day, I have no clue why my son told me he threw the remote control into the canyon. I’m sure he was entertained watching me as I held onto branches and bushes to not tumble down the cliff.
What unexpected things have your kids done to make your life exciting?
Did you see the news about a food fight at a baseball game? It was the Phillies “dollar dog night” that got totally out of hand with hot dogs thrown throughout the stadium. When I saw that, I flashed on a memory from when my kids were young.
One of the great things we did for our children was sign them up for Junior Lifeguards in Laguna Beach in the summer. It was quite a project. Laguna residents got to sign up first. It was fierce competition to get a spot. I’d drive down the night before registration opened for non-residents and stay in a hotel. Once I took my daughter with me. We got up at 5 a.m. and sat in front of the parks and rec building in beach chairs and sleeping bags. We were about fourth in line.
The line grew long by 8 a.m. and people walking by said “Woah! What concert are you waiting to buy tickets for?”
My son is in the second row to the bottom, third from right.
At Junior Guards the kids would run on the beach, learn about the different beaches and coves, swim through the blow hole and out in the ocean. They had all sorts of competitive games they’d play on the beach, too. They’d be exhausted when I’d pick them up at the end of the day.
The final day of Junior Guards was a picnic at Heisler Park. We’d all contribute something for the feast. I was shocked to find out the picnic ended in a free-for-all food fight! It was a disaster with the kids in their white Junior Guard t-shirts smeared with mustard, ketchup and potato salad. The park was a disaster!
Needless to say, I was not happy that my kids participated in it. But talk about chagrin! My son informed me my adorable young perfect daughter started it!
My hoodlum daughter is in the second row to the bottom with a big braid over her shoulder. My son is two rows directly above her.
What have your children done that surprised you — good or bad?
Labor Day walk at the beach. We go early to beat the crowds.
Every single day we observe dolphins. At first, it was one or two. Then it became three and four. Now I walk a quarter mile with dolphins leaping, playing, cruising up and down the beach. I can’t imagine how many are in pods that stretch the length of my walk.
Every single day I try to get a video. They don’t do the dolphin magic justice. That is what they are to me. Magic. Or is it spiritual?
My husband was out catching waves with our son’s girlfriend. They both told me how they were out beyond the waves and a dolphin leaped out of the water right before their eyes. It’s mesmerizing.
I can spend hours starting at dolphins. I feel peaceful and in awe.
Here are four fun facts about dolphins from the Monterey Bay Aquarium followed by one fact from the Dolphin Project:
Bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay, Australia learned to wear sponges over their beaks while foraging among sharp coral — the only known case of cetacean tool use.
As is true for all cetaceans, a dolphin’s nostrils have shifted to the top of its head, becoming a blowhole that permits easy breathing at the water’s surface.
A bottlenose dolphin contains three times more blood than a human by body weight, increasing the dolphin’s oxygen-storage capacity during dives.
When asleep, a dolphin keeps half of its brain awake in order to keep breathing.
Dolphins have very large brains– their brain to body size ratio is second only to our own! They also exhibit sophisticated forms of communication, tool use, cooperative feeding methods, culture and social learning, and play.
It’s hot. Hotter than at my home in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona and we are at the beach. It topped 104 degrees in Santa Barbara yesterday. The only cool place to be is in the ocean.
Taking the advice of fellow blogger of Living in the Gap, Cheryl Oreglia, I bought a boogie board. She didn’t say “buy a boogie board.” She asked if we’d done anything spontaneous lately. If you don’t follow her or read her blog, you’re missing out. She has her first book under contract that will be released in 2023. You can find out more from her latest posts.
I haven’t been in the ocean for several years. First it was my knee surgery from a ski accident. That was 2018 and I was sporting the heavy ACL brace you see on NFL players. Not a good thing for the ocean. Then I worried about waves and babied my knee the next year. The following year there were the Great White Sharks.
I watched my son’s girlfriend surf for hours every day while they visited. She inspired me. I remembered the days when I’d ask the lifeguards to watch my kids while I swam out to a buoy or did a bit of boogie boarding. Then I boogie boarded with my kids as they got older.
The other day, I was hot and I wandered into the ocean knee deep to cool off. It dawned on me — my knee is okay. Also, I had cataract surgery. I don’t have to worry about losing my hard contact lenses that I wore from seventh grade to age 59! Woohoo! One drop of water on my eyes and I’d lose my contacts. It really restricted my ocean adventuring.
I decided to rent a boogie board where my son’s girlfriend rented her surfboard — at the surf shop a quarter mile down the beach from where we hang out. $15 for one to three hours. But I was at the grocery store when I saw a boogie board on sale for $15 because it’s the last weekend of summer. Tough choice.
So I did it. I got back into the ocean after four or five years and I feel like a kid again. The perfect end to our beach vacation. Even with the heat wave. Or especially BECAUSE of the heat wave.
I caught a wave! A little one, but I’m back!
Heatwave, Ella Fitzgerald.
Are you having a heat wave? How do you survive the heat?
Have you done anything spontaneous lately? What was it?
