Hurricane Ridge

5900 feet in 17 miles. 60 degrees at sea level but 45 here. Beautiful though! This is looking at Mt. Olympus, part of the Olympic Ridge. Pretty spectacular.

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Sequim

This is the view from dad's house looking down on Sequim, WA. When its clear, you can see Canada! Great view, more to come...

First class

Ok, on the flight to Seattle, we had a chance to upgrade to first class for $100 each. Well, we did it. Oh boy, nice! More food than we could eat, not to mention the free flowing mimosas and wine. Great service and a seat that reclined enough to sleep in. Man, it was worth it. But, even in the regular cabin, it looked pretty good. We are flying back "regular" class, so we'll report on that, but so far, Virgin America is a winner and I would definetely recommend it!

LAX

Off to seattle for a few days. Spent the night at the Hilton LAX and leaving the car here. This is our view looking out over the runway. Going to try Virgin American airlines - will let you know how it is!

Wild

You may or may not know, but Google has been driving around the United States taking pictures of every street & adding the images to Google Maps. The pictures are taken 360 degrees from any spot so they can generate a panoramic view. Well, guess what little town shows up now :)

If you go to Google Maps and enter our address, you'll see a "pop up" on the map for our house. Click the "street view" link and you'll end up on our street. You'll have to use the arrows that are superimposed on the street to move up the road a bit, but you'll get to our house. You can zoom, rotate the view, go around the corner a bit, pretty wild.

Then, for fun - put in your address, and see if you show up! Maybe you were in the front yard in your pajamas getting the newspaper when the camera van drove by ?

Digger dog

For some reason, Decker was in a digging mood last night. This rarely happens but when it does, its pretty funny. He's not the most coordinated of pooches and his technique needs some work, but he seems to enjoy himself. He cleared everybody out of the surrounding chairs, due to the flying sand, and dug for a fair amount of time. He kept sniffing the hole, convinced there was something to find. Alas, he came up empty handed, and tired :-)

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The last days of summer

Here's the view from the pier looking toward town. There are still a fair number of people around, at least during the day, but town is definitely quieter than its been. Its a beautiful day, despite the lack of surf!

How often do you see that?

I was sitting at my desk when I could have sworn I heard a goat. I looked out my window and sure enough, there is a herd of goats following a gal on a bicycle up the road. There most have been 30 of them. This was the best shot I could get as I had to act fast.

They were being herded by two very happy, busy dogs. Watching them, It really struck me what a herd mentality the goats have. Had they all decided to run in different directions at once, nobody could have done anything about it. But, they just stuck together, following the gal on the bike. I guess there is the threat of being nipped by one of the dogs...

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Rock, what rock?

This is the view from the 23rd street stairs looking toward Morro Bay. Normally, you see the rock but tonight, there was this great fog bank hovering over Morro Bay. We enjoyed a sunny, beautiful evening, thank you very much :)

We can already sense a change in the seasons. Town is quieter as many schools have started and most of the tourists have gone. The beach is mellow in the evening again, and the streets are quiet, which I love.

Also, the last few days I've really been noticing the angle of the sun. It's starting to get that fall look to it. And the past few mornings we've had a hint of the on-shores to come. They bring a chaparral scent from the hills with them and I just love it. Smells like fall! You know what will happen though. We usually get our warmest weather in September & October, so while "tourist" summer may be nearing an end....the one the locals enjoy is just getting ready to begin :)

How spoiled is this?

So, the Whippet, as you know, doesn't have much fur. As a result, the Whippet likes to sleep under someting. Preferably, the bed covers of the owners. However, this proves to be problematic as the Whippet has pointy paws, likes to snuggle, and is warm enough to heat a small house. To encourage him to sleep in his bed, we used to cover him up with an old sleeping bag. That worked great and he would sleep there most of the night. Well, the non-Whippet decided it would be fun to pull all the stuffing out of the old sleeping bag. Who knows why. And, eventually, we had to throw it away. We tried substituting a fleece blanket, but it stuck to the Whippet and didn't work very well.

Enter my once a year use of the sewing machine. Behold, the new Whippet blanket. Flannel on one side, designer fabric on the other, and it's quilted! Don't look too closely at the workmanship though. But hey - it looks better than a ratty old sleeping bag, and so far, the Whippet seems to enjoy sleeping under it.....

Jellyfish

Here is one of the jellyfish that have been hanging around lately. My foot is in the picture to give some perspective of size. These don't seem to have much in the way of tentacles. In the water, they kind of swim on their side a bit, like they were leaning forward, if that makes sense. They look beautiful when in the water, and appear much more delicate than when laying in a blob on the beach. Still, they give me the heebee jeebies just the same. I only saw one when I was surfing last night, and none this morning. Maybe they are moving on...

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Now this looks like Summer

The weather has warmed up and we are getting a nice variety of veggies. Not sure what I'm going to do with the pumpkin but it sure is cute! I think I'll probably cut up the eggplants, some zucchini, the onion and a few peppers and roast it all. Add some feta cheese once its cooled, some olive oil and balsamic...sounds good to me!

Not only is the water warm right now, but there is an algae bloom going on and there is a ridiculous number of jellyfish about. I put my hand down on one twice yesterday when I was surfing. Ick. Soft and slimy feeling - kinda freaked me out! Coupled with the ice tea colored water, it made for an interesting surf. The waves were fun though.

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More wildlife

We were down south over the weekend and these beetles were everywhere. OK, not everywhere, but they were quite prevalent. They ranged in size but were averaged about 1" long. They were mainly flying around like they were drunk, running into things before turning away, but I did manage to watch one until it landed. They are even more brilliant green in person.

I did a bit of research (OK, one Google search) and it turns out they are called Fig Beetles (Cotinus Texana). You can see some pictures & read a bit about them here. (scroll down and looke for Fig Beetles)

Board booboo

This is the deck of my favorite surfboard. The foam started compressing around the stringer (I could feel the edge of the stringer with my heel) and I let it go longer than I should. Last weekend, I cleaned all the wax off and found that there was a crack about four inches long, and it had let in some water. I've done some repair work in the past, so I started cutting out the damaged fiberglass a bit at a time. I soon realized that the damage was worse than I though so decided to seek professional help.

You can see the discolored area around the portion I cut out. That's what the foam does when it gets wet. Also, the area has "delaminated," which means the fiberglass has separated from the foam. Not good. I took it to the local surf shop - they have a ding repair guy they farm stuff out to. Hopefully, I'll have the board back in a week or two. Luckily, I have a backup (or three....).

Seems out of place, doesn't it?

We've had company this week - Sue, Steph & Chryssa. I took a few days off from work and played tourist, which was great. On our last beach walk today, we found this guy (gal?) on the beach. I don't think I've ever found a praying mantis on the beach before. We moved it back to safety, but as we continued to walk, saw a number of dead ones on the beach. Not sure why they were there - eating, mating, both? A new, natural phenomenon. That's Steph & Chryssa in the background with the boys.

Thanks for everything girls - we had a great time! See you soon....