Sunday I traveled to Santa Cruz to have lunch with Susan. I had a wonderful visit with Lacey and the Fab Kittehs whom proudly showed me their meese hunting skills. Youse gots to have skillz :)

The weather was just perfect. We had a delicious lunch at the Crows Nest which is part of a very busy harbor. Though I have eaten there a few other times, the place is huge and always has good food. And the seating area they put us at was in a part of the restaurant I have never been in. It is a side area with our window directly under a large tree and right on the beach. It was almost a private room the way it was laid out. We watched beach volley ball players, families strolling on the beach, kids digging in the sand, boats coming and going, and the most adorable Chickadee building its nest right above our heads.

After finishing our lunch, I urged Susan to go for a walk to the end of the walk out. Not sure what they call this. There is a small lighthouse at the end. It is a narrow manmade section to split the harbor for incoming and outgoing launches. We walked to the end and bravely (or foolishly) crawled over the large cement objects in place to help break up the surf. They look like 10 ton jumping jacks. I ended up sitting at the very tip of this walkway, sitting on a large rounded cement jack. The view was incredible. Nothing really on either side of us since we were flanked by both channels, we had a completely unbroken view of the water. We saw a sea otter taking advantage of the lovely day. We watched birds diving down into the water in their pursuit of a fishy dinner. Of course we saw a ton of boats both large and small. We saw the beaches on either side of just covered with people. We saw huge pelicans both slowly fly by or slowly alit on the water. We saw star fish on the rocks along with other sea critters and plants.

A sea lion had me pissed off. LOL--darned thing was toying with me. We barely saw him as we walked down the pier. Then a bit later, as we were sitting on the out cropping, I barely caught him frolicking in the channel behind me. I stood up to watch him, but he did not come back. I was half convinced it was a black Lab I saw. After a long time sitting, I checked my watch and realized it was time to go. Just as we climbed back over the rocks and were starting to walk back, that darned sea lion came back. This time, RIGHT in front of where we had been sitting for more than 1 hour! And this time he brought a friend. LOL--I was furious. The darned thing was watching me and waiting. I just knew it!

You can see a ton of sea lions lounging around under the piers. But I don't see one just swimming along very often. They really do remind me alot of dogs :)

I told Susan countless times: "I will never get tired of looking at this coastline". I have lived in California my whole life and it never gets old. I know I am fortunate and believe me, I savor every minute.