Beach Birthday

Second year in a row that my birthday fell on a weekend. A lovely June weekend. With temps promised in the low 100s (which never materialized), I thought that an escape to the beach would be the best way to relax with H, C and B. These days we tend to head toward Laguna and try out any beach where we can find parking.

While on the road, we decided to stop off at 85C for sea salt coffee and then yelped where we could find Mexican take-out in Laguna. Papa's Tacos came highly recommended, and that's where we ended up. The proprietor/chef/server was very friendly and when I told him it was my birthday, he threw in a bag of chips with some salsa. We took our food and ended up at Aliso Beach. The parking lot was full when we drove through, but I spotted a street space across the busy PCH which was still there after we rounded back. Luckily there is a tunnel under the highway for pedestrians.

We enjoyed people-watching while we ate our burritos, which we ranked very highly. Then we read a little, chatted and near the end of our stay we watched a pod of dolphins frolicking in the waves. That was certainly a highlight. 

Back home, after showers and a little phone chat with L, C treated us to a homemade peach and almond cake with vanilla ice cream. 

A most excellent way to celebrate.

Ordering at Papa's Tacos.

Vavara

I recently discovered that a friend of mine has started a blog. She lives near the ocean and walks along the shore daily, taking photos and posting not only a photo, but thoughts about life. Her site is called Vavara and her subtitle is Pondering the Ocean as Art.

Tall Ships Festival

Today was a perfect day to escape the heat of the Inland Empire and go to Dana Point to partake of the Tall Ships Festival.  The Brig Pilgrim, docked at the Dana Point Harbor, is a replica of the ship from Richard Henry Dana's Two Years Before the Mast. Some of the tall ships in the harbor are used by school groups for 3-5 day living history and oceanography learning. You can read about those opportunities here. 

During our four hours at the festival, we toured through about 6 tall ships, watched a little play on board the Pilgrim, people-watched (lots of people dressed up as pirates, a few as mermaids), saw some aquariums, watched a parrot show, saw some hula dancing and watched a demonstration of sailors climbing the rigging to let out a sail. 

This was a very popular event with many, many people. It continues on Sunday. Here are a few of the many, many pics I took (as usual).

A very cute pirate

Some grown-up pirates.

Part of the Royal Marine Corps in the play

Royal Marines firing away

Pirates getting ready to board the Pilgrim to free the captive, Jean Lafitte

Jean Lafitte in need of rescuing

Pirates vs. Royal Marines

Climbing in the rigging. Not what I want to do.

A pirate and his parrots

Kids with parrots

The Queen Mary (as in the ship)

Last Friday the Village Pipers played for the Haiku North America conference aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach. As First-Timers aboard the ship, we had fun taking a self-guided tour through the public parts, but the place that held the most interest for us was below decks in the engine rooms. I have posted a few pictures from our wanderings, but, as you might imagine, someone has posted a video on youtube walking through the space which is way bigger than I had imagined. The video shows the propeller about 3 1/2 minutes in. I was unable to get a photo of that.

One of the hallways of the hotel part of the ship

Beach Day!

Today was a day for the beach! Turns out that we are more inclined towards Orange Co. beaches than LA Co., and one beach we've recently discovered is Treasure Island - a Laguna Beach City Beach. After a stop at 85C for our favorite iced sea salt coffees and some breakfast burritos from the Penguin Cafe, we took our blanket and NY Times and set up shop before the heat of the day and the crowds of people.

Before too long, however, a group of teens with several photographers came by for some kind of photo shoot, and since they planted themselves directly in front of us, I thought I would have my own little photo shoot. There seemed to be one girl who was the center of attention (and she changed clothes a few times....) and at one point they threw her up in the air.

Some of the beautiful tide pools at this beach

I thought that the colors of the ocean were particularly lovely today.

One of my many pelican photos. I love watching them fly in formation. This angle does not look like any kind of formation, but they started out in a V.

The Pacific Ocean

We love the Pacific Ocean. Here are some ocean photos from our spring break trip.

I like taking photos of birds in flight. Here is one of gulls flying over the ocean near Cambria.

I love the way the sun makes the sea sparkle on the sand.

Duh.

Here are elephant seal pups lounging on the shore near the Piedras Blancas Lighthouse.

We also love tide pools.

Two-Tank Touring

I seem to recall a column in a paper (LA Times?) recommending short road trips called One-Tank Touring. Having just returned from a short jaunt up California's central coast where we used up more than one tank of gas, but fewer than two, I preferred the alliterative title of this post to the more awkward One-and-a-Half Tank Touring.

Anyway.

Last Thanksgiving when we went to Death Valley National Park, I was all set to declare that we had been to every National Park in California. A little fact-checking led me to realize that we still needed to get to the Channel Islands, because going to the Visitor Center in Ventura does not count as having been in the park. (Pinnacles has recently been upgraded from National Monument to National Park status, and we have been there, so I am counting that in my list.)

Hoping for good weather, I booked our boat ride to Anacapa Island, the smallest and closest island of the chain. Although the morning started out a little foggy, as it is wont to do on the ocean, the sun soon broke free, and we enjoyed beautiful skies and warm weather for the day.

This is a view from the boat as we approached Anacapa. The boat ride takes about an hour. The arch rock is the signature landmark for the Channel Islands. 

Bird droppings could also be considered a signature landmark for the islands.

Here is the boat landing site. Once you disembark, you must climb 153 stairs to the top of the island. Once on top, it is fairly flat and easy to traverse the 2 miles of trails which loop around in a kind-of figure 8.

Western gulls rule the island. Right now they are scoping out their territories for nesting. 

My favorite ocean birds are brown pelicans. I love watching them fly in formation. These guys nest on the middle of the three islands of Anacapa and you can sit and watch them fly over in formation after formation as though you are sitting under an airport approach. Our guide told us they are nicknamed the Anacapa Air Force.

Here is a view from Inspiration Point. A perfect place for a little picnic. You must bring your own provisions and pack out all trash.

At the opposite end of the island from Inspiration Point is the last permanent lighthouse built on the West Coast - 1932.

Here is a lovely spot for viewing - Cathedral Cove.

The coreopsis are blooming all over the island now, giving the effect of a yellow carpet.

Random Friday Photo

As seen on the 101 just south of Santa Barbara in June. 

Labor Day

Twenty seven years ago, I was in labor. How fitting. Happy birthday to my firstborn, L! Since we were unable to help her celebrate in Oregon this year (having recently celebrated her marriage there), we decided to celebrate her here at home. This is what we did.

After getting breakfast burritos at Alberto's and coffee, we took off down the 57 towards Costa Mesa with bikes on the rack. See how light the traffic was on this holiday morning?

Knowing a bit about where we had biked last June, we could make better plans for our trip. First we parked in a little park near Estancia High School and rode our bikes over to the Santa Ana River toward the ocean and Huntington Beach. The good thing about this plan is that the parking is free. The other good thing about this plan (and this is the really good thing) is that the first part of the ride is against the ocean breezes, and the return trip is with the breeze.  Again, we rode 22 miles, and this way was much better.

We stopped for a bit and watched the waves, the surfers and the beautiful blue sky.

Here are two kites that look like parasailers.

Part of the bike ride involved trying to find this park that has a big cement dome made to look moon-like. We could not get to the park on bikes because I was way too tired at that point, and my little tushy was complaining. However, we did manage to find the park with the GPS after we got back to the car so that I could see the wonder of the moon. Here it is, in all its glory. It's something, huh?

All in all, it was a great way to celebrate the day I first became a mom.

Kayaking

Since Claire had the day off from work yesterday, and Liesl is leaving this morning, we took a little family trip to Dana Point yesterday. Liesl is enamored of kayaks lately, so we decided to rent some for a little paddle around the breakwater. The weather was overcast, cool, and delightful, and we made our way through all the little sailboats with kids taking lessons.

After our hour jaunt, we wandered over to the marine center. It's been years since we were there - long enough for them to completely rebuild the small center into a rather large one, and now they charge admission. We couldn't go in, anyway, since during the week they are busy with summer camp kids.