Got back from California in the wee hours of this morning and spent the day accomplishing nothing but going to the grocery store and here it is bedtime already.
We were a little north of San Diego with Michael's dad's family.
We got up every morning before everyone else and took a long walk up and down the beach.
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| Keeping an eye out for pelicans. |
Then we'd go get coffee and donuts made fresh to order.
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| Probably saying something about the sorry state of the world, that or wondering at the business-speak of all the morning meetings going on around us. |
Then we'd head back to the house to do things with the family.
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| Michael's step-brother Christian has rented a large van the last couple of years, all the better to haul the folks around. This is about half the crew. |
Then we'd have dinner and hang out watching the sunset over the ocean.
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| Somehow there are a million versions of this photo and in none of them are we all looking at the camera. |
Bird count: Lots of pelicans, a shore bird called a Hobsonian Whimbril, three types of gull (Western, California, and Heermann's), black phoebes, the tiny but loud Swinhoe's White-eye that I'd never heard of but which was everywhere, Allan's hummingbirds, osprey, a great egret that caught and ate three fish while we watched, ravens that a custodian in the school where they roosted told us said "Hey" because they'd learned it from him. A common loon fishing in the surf that honestly looked drowned until it popped up and said "Hey." What we think might have been a juvenile Yellow Crested Night Heron, except it was dark (they're nocturnal) and they're not regular to the region.
And now there's a week until the semester starts and I'm not ready. (I'm teaching two classes this fall, I'll tell you all about it later.)
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