fun in the sun

Today Mel woke up bright and early and I got up with her, she left, i lazed around for a bit, and then i left too. i decided to go for a long walk. i walked along west cliff to natural bridges beach and cut through the eucalypts as a shortcut. i wandered along the cliffs and poked in the tidepools... and fed ursula to an anemone. I ended up lost in a subdivision. I asked a random man for directions that led me down a dead end road and across the railroad tracks and walked a few miles along a bike path and encountered a very long snake. Are there poisonous snakes in calfornia? i didn't know, but i cautiously snapped some pictures and quickly moved on. eventually i made it to wilder park and walked a very long path to the cliffs to look at geology, plants, birds, etc. And then I walked in for lunch and then home - estimating 5ive miles. Mel thought I drove there so she was super impressed when she found out I walked. Click on the little slide show up the right to see some of my fun photos.

I picked up Jerome at the bus station which was interesting because I have only seen two pictures of Jerome, I dont really know where anything is in Santa Cruz because Mel always drives, and in fact there is no parking or any legal way to pull up next to the bus station. I was trying to figure out where I was going and where on earth I could park so that I could get out and find Jerome with the orange backpack. Jerome is much smarter than me - by recognizing Mel's truck and my impeccable timing... I was pulling into a parking spot and watching out for the pedestrians. I realized that one of the pedestrians was Jerome when he opened the back of the truck and threw in his bag that had tiny amounts of orange trim. Oops. I played it off well and no one will be the wiser until they read this ... as Mel casually asks me if I am typing about my adventures. :)

The rest of the afternoon i read my book and spent time with Mel and Jerome. After showering I realized that I am sunburned... in odd places. I noticed that my foot was red when i removed my shoes but thought it was just because I had walked quite a while...but I am in fact sunburned. The top of one foot, the tops of my hands, the back of my neck, and right above my sockline. This sunburn is congruous (is this a real word used in the right context?) with my habits of the last few days - sitting and reading in the sun and hiking wearing long sleeves and capris. Possibly, this is the oddest sunburn I have ever had.

Dinner was fun. Jerome has never had a peep so I tried to get him to eat one. He instead morphed the peep chick into a santa cruz banana slug - and it looked accurate, especially the eyes. He did try it, but was not impressed with the sugar covered marshmallow. He liked Mel's boston cream pie better.

Tomorrow I get to get up super early and be a seal biologist. YAY... well except for getting up at 4 something, but I did that to get on a plane and this is way more exciting.