Camping... take 3.

The thing about the beach is you can run and jump and dance and people don't look at you like you're crazy... at least I don't think they do. Maybe it's the sun or the rhythmic crashing of the waves. I don't reall know. But whatever it is, it makes us free-er (is that a word?) to be ourselves, to let loose and bust a move.

Camping... Pebble Beach

Our camping journey started with a drive down Hwy 1. Stop #1 was the bakery in Pescadaro where we got fresh artichoke bread and cinnamon bread (something I ate freqently as a child). Then on to Pebble Beach we went. My second time there in a week! This place fascinates me beyond belief. How do you, within the span of a mile, have a sandy beach, a rocky cliff, tide pools, and a beach covered in pebbles? (If anyone knows the answer to that, please, speak up)

There, of course, was the joyous tossing of the pebbles...

Plenty of laughter after shoving pebbles down Katie's shirt....

I'm beginning to find that carrying my camera along and documenting life is giving me a new appretiation for the beauty surrounding me. I've grown so familiar with this place that I live that I don't see it anymore. But when I get home and upload my pictures on my computer and sit down to edit them, suddenly I see what I may have missed before. I see these moments that I captured, moments that I didn't fully realize until I got to look at them again. I love that a camera does that. And I am learning, slowly, how to be in a moment with my camera without intruding on that moment...

The beach: Part 2

As I prepare myself to move back to Chicago I'm trying to take some time to enjoy this place that I live. My dear friend Katie called me up the other day and asked if I wanted to drive along Hwy 1 and take some pictures (she really must know me well, huh?). So that's exactly what we did...

A stop at the tide pools... of course the only thing we saw was a half-dead crab. But she'd never been there so her excitement made it worth it. Sometimes I forget how amazing this place is, but there was something about have a camera in hand that reminded me of how lucky I am (and made me wonder why the heck I'm moving back to Chicago).

The waves were huge and came in droves, crashing into the rocks sending their cold spray straight for us. There were a few times when I was sure that we'd be swept away or at least end up with very wet legs, but somehow we managed to esacpe the ocean's grip (barely).

Pebble beach was on the agenda as well. This is one of my favorite places to go. (for those who have never been there the beach is all pebbles and when the water sweeps over it it sounds like a giant rain maker) When I was in 5th grade we went there on an Outdoor Ed field trip and got to pick our favorite pebble and put it in a pebble hotel (see the second picture for an example of what a pebble hotel looks like). Mine was green. I took a picture of it. It was blurry.

We finished up our trip by visiting my favorite place in the entire world... the buckeye grove. I think it speaks for itself.

A day at the beach... The bizarre

I'm not usually one for weird pictures. I like things that look real, but beach adventure day yesterday led to some really strange pictures that I thought worthy of sharing. Tomorrow I'll put up some others, but for today, enjoy these ones...

This was a total accident... I had put my camera on a post facing the sky on a super slow shutter and as I took the pictures the zoom slipped down giving this cool effect of the tree tops. That's right... no editing on this picture!