The north coast

We went up to Sea Ranch this weekend, courtesy of my mother. It was lovely, as usual. This time we got a home that was closer to Highway 1 and farther from the ocean -- too far, in my opinion, since while it was walkable, it was a pretty long walk (and really too long for Devon, since we really wanted her to have energy to walk along the water, not to the water). But any weekend at Sea Ranch is a good one.

Yesterday it was downright balmy there -- even my dad, who was with us, commented on how warm it was. We went for a walk along the water and Devon had a wonderful time. She ran along the sea trail for probably 1/4 of a mile, running the whole way, before she settled down to a walk. My dad commented at how much happier she seemed after getting outside (this was, of course, after she had spent the last half hour crying about putting on clothes).


One good thing about this house was that it had good access to wildlife, which probably like being closer to the hills than to the ocean. There was a covey of quail that clearly had a nest very close by, and there was a pair of jackrabbits that kept popping out into the open. Devon was especially fascinated by the jackrabbits ("Mr. Jackrabbit"), and we must have gone outside at least 6 times to "look" at the jackrabbits (which primarily consisted of chasing them). Walt spotted a gopher coming out of his hole, which was pretty neat since I've never seen one before. My dad also saw a pair of foxes (which none of the rest of us saw, I'm afraid).

Today we saw two beaches full of harbor seals that had hauled out to pup. We couldn't go down to the beach to see them up close (which no doubt was a good thing, since they have very big, sharp teeth), but we stood on the cliff looking down at them. There were loads of fat mother seals, each with a little baby nearby, suckling or lolling about on the sand. One interesting fact I learned was that baby seals can swim as soon as they are born, and they often go out with their mothers a little way so they can learn to swim and fish before they are weaned. Devon was fascinated by the seals and of course kept wanting to go down closer to see them; luckily my dad have binoculars, so we could really see some good detail (Devon kept carrying them, but I doubt she was able to see anything through them).

Generally we bring food up and cook there, since Sea Ranch isn't near anything to speak of and the only nearby town, Gualala, is small and podunk. Last night, though, my dad decided we should go out to eat, and we ended up going to a barbecue joint. It was a biker bar cum bbq, and the place was full of locals duded out in Harley gear drinking Bud longnecks. It also happened to be music night -- actually open mic night according to the sign -- and band was setting up as we arrived. Right as we ordered they fired up and started off on some of the worst music I have heard in my life. Honestly. They had a really weird mix of guitar, clarinet, electronic keyboard (yet no percussion) that was supposedly playing "jazz" but it was a complete cacophony -- at earsplitting volume too. Devon managed to eat some dinner but soon complained that it was too "noisy," and we ended up taking a break in the parking lot. We hightailed it out of there as fast as we could.

One last note: this house had satellite TV, and as far as I could tell, satellite TV just has more channels of things you don't want to watch. We tried the TV after Devon went to bed, and there was literally nothing to watch. Maybe it was just Saturday night TV, but you'd think with 100 channels we could have found something better than The Breakfast Club. Made me feel that the no TV rule for Devon makes sense given the current programming lineup. And in case you're wondering, that's a movie that doesn't age well...

Walt has some great photos of the wekeend that I'll post as soon as he gets them off his disk.