Still thinking about travel

We have some old friends visiting, from Denmark. Jan, a naval architect who works at the Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping, and Catharina, who is communications officer for vaccine-preventable diseases at WHO (though both are about the retire, at the end of June). We met them at UC Berkeley in the 1980s, and Catharina grew up in California, so this place is well known to them, though they don't visit very often anymore. 

We've spent the past couple of days wandering our local habitat, yesterday through Monterey, along Cannery Row, and into Pacific Grove along the shore; today Elkhorn Slough (a tidal estuary) just north of us and neighboring Moss Landing, a little fishing harbor. To me these places are, well, just local places—not not special, but . . . well, they're not like wandering the Langelinie in Copenhagen and bumping into the Little Mermaid, which Jan and Catharina can do any day they feel like it (and I'm betting they very rarely do). 

And so it's been very heartening to me to experience their unbridled delight in the spots we've been encountering—it's like seeing my world through fresh eyes. Which is something I rather need, given how depressing my world has become. (Yes, that's a political comment.) They are so happy just with the weather! And yes, really, it's been perfect weather—not too hot, not too cold, some sun, not too much.

Today, at the slough, we lingered on a bench, and then on a pier, just watching the bird life—a greater yellow-legs, a long-legged shorebird, something I hadn't seen in a while; a whole herd of (Brandt's?) cormorants and brown pelicans and great egrets dashing back and forth in a watery inlet, probably after baitfish; acorn woodpeckers flitting in and out of a nesting hole in an acorn-studded dead pine. These birds are unusual for J&C, but even for us, having the chance—or rather, taking the time—to simply observe them in a leisurely fashion, what a treat. Then at Moss Landing, we stood for a good twenty, thirty minutes watching, mesmerized, as maybe seventy sea lions lounged and battled and bawled and shlumped right over one another in a sandy cove, all punctuated by the insistent cry of a seagull settled into the top of a piling, and by a circling ballet of more sea lions, fins and tails raised in a thermoregulating salute, in the water. It was quite the sight, and quite the cacophony. 

Yesterday, we ducked into a shop selling alebrijes, fanciful carved wooden animals intricately painted in bright colors, and encountered a seventeen-year-old Sulcata, or African spurred, tortoise out for a stroll (her name is Sunny; her owner is Gary). 

Here are some pictures I've taken.

A porcupine alebrije

Gary and Sunny

A yucca flower with buzzing bees

Ed Ricketts on the rec trail

The slough—so peaceful

The mob of hunting waterfowl

A few of the sea lions (and that noisy seagull)

It's been a little bit like being on vacation—and is making me feel slightly less curmudgeonly about travel (see my last couple of posts). Because although I like being a "tourist" in my own neighborhood, I really love exploring new places, and feeling that fresh delight of strangeness and discovery—which I've also been getting a glimpse of from Jan and Catharina. Gotta find your teachers where they are.