This past couple weeks we’ve had the rare treat of a visit from our Parisian daughter, Tamsyn — as well as, from yesterday until today, my wife’s excellent brother Colin. Their visits have occasioned the excuse to go do the fun, touristy things that we usually don’t give ourselves leave to do, being otherwise occupied with projects of world-changing importance like laundry and hot tub maintenance.
Around here, touristy things generally involve the outdoors — hiking, kayaking, surfing, and marine mammals. Regarding the latter, yesterday we took Tamsyn up beyond San Simeon to have a long gawk at the elephant seals that particularly like to winter and birth their babies on a short stretch of coast not far from William Randolph Hearst’s old crib. The elephant seals, enormous tubes of blubber and attitude, spend most of their time in communal sleeping; though the occasional fight breaks out between the big males, providing entertainment for all the tourist dads who don’t have enough money to pay for an NHL season streaming package.
Anyway, here’s a trio of rather self-satisfied looking elephant seal females having a spa day.
This morning, we took Tamsyn and Colin (who is a much better photographer than I am, by the way) over to Morro Bay, where we gorged on pancakes at Dorn’s until we were in danger of becoming elephant seals ourselves. Waddling down to the bayside afterward to work off some calories, we stopped by the sea otter nursery — a protected corner of the bay right off the Embarcadero — to see who was home. With most of the season’s otter babies now grown a bit and cavorting in the deeper water, the nursery was mostly deserted — with the exception of a white-furred old geezer spinning slowly and dreaming of the good old days, and one mom otter with a late-season infant (photo at top).
When the babies are still tiny like this, the moms like to carry them around on their bellies. It’s often difficult to make out the faces of the little ones, but when you can manage it, they look like they’re wearing little bandit masks.
Sadly, our loved ones are gone once again, back to their different destinations, so it’s back to evenings watching The Lincoln Lawyer and days doing the hardware sales associate gig. *sigh* Why can’t weekends last longer?
Ronald Crittenden 