AND TO THINK THAT WE SAW THAT

It’s July 15, 2012 and we’re going back to Elkhorn Slough at Moss Landing.  I first heard about Elkhorn while visiting the Monterey Bay Aquarium last year.  I was homesick for the Chesapeake Bay and so asked a nearby guide where we could kayak and see animals?  To that Mr. Guide said, “Elkhorn Slough at Moss Landing and the good people at Monterey Bay Kayaks will set you up. “ Mr. Guide was right then and he’s right now.  This is our second trip to Elkhorn Slough and it’s a must-see for naturalists looking to enjoy wild Cali animals in their native habitat, including sea otters, sea lions, harbor seals, over 250 resident and migratory birds and seven endangered species but who’s counting… 

When we arrive, we discover that Tommy, at 5’4+”, no longer needs to paddle Mom around but instead can have his own kayak.    Measuring nearly 5’4” myself I’m tall enough for my own kayak too but Anna is not 5’ 4” so she rides with Daddy which is always nice because all she has to do is sit there if she wants; Eric can paddle for two.  But before we are ready to go, we need to put on rental wet-suits because its 69 degrees today and the winds are blowing at 10 knots.  (For the folks back at home dealing with 100+ degree heat indexes, 69 degrees is cold especially when sitting low on the water.)  And now we’re ready to explore the shore. 

Paddling ‘round the bend is easy because we have the tide working in our favor.  The rule of thumb is to allow 1/3 of your time paddling out and 2/3 of your time paddling back.  Another rule of thumb is to stay 75 feet away from the animals.  Really?  That may true for most people but it doesn’t apply to us.  I mean right here, next to our boat, is Fisher Pac Man, the hungry Sea Otter.  He floats around on his back munching on crustaceans all day.  We’re so close; we can see his upper and lower teeth tear away fish bones and crabs.  In fact, we can hear him!! “Crunch, Crunch, Crunch.”  The best part is Fisher Pac Man don’t care!  So we continue to follow him, three kayaks versus one sea otter.  But where did he go?  There he is!  Look - now he has two nasty kelp crabs, one on his chest and one in his mouth.  GO Fisher Pac Man GO! 

Sorry, about that… I’m a huge fan of the Honey Badger and I got a little carried away.  Anyway, after two hours of paddling against the wind, we’re ready to hang up our wetsuits and look for frogs at Pinnacles National Monument.

We’re excited to return to the reservoir at  Bear Gulch but it’s 6 o’clock by the time we reach the top; the sun is low and the cold-blooded creatures have all gone to sleep for the night except for one little foggy that Anna pounced on, grabbed and put on her face for Eric.  Last year when we were here, I packed a delicious lunch.   This year I did not – I couldn’t be bothered.  So with crummies in our tummies, we reluctantly left Bear Gulch after a short while and headed back down the trail.  Once we pass the caves, Tommy dared Anna to keep up by sprinting down the path.  I didn’t realize how fast Tommy is until I saw him fly across rocks and round bends like a natural born runner.  But that shouldn’t surprise me, after all he is a Voit and all Voits run.

It turns out leaving Pinnacles is more difficult than I thought it would be because California Quails keep popping up on the side of the road, literally.  We try at least three times to get a picture of it but the Quails are camera shy for some reason and keeping moving just as the shutter closes.  Further down the road I see a pinecone on the side that I have to have but Eric says it’s not good enough and after stopping for this one, I discover he’s right.  Eric says, “I’ll find you a better one.” And he actually does because for one thing his eyesight beyond 3 feet in front of my face is better than mine.  When we see a coyote someone shouted, “Stop the car!”  (Snap) Tommy takes the picture and gets a good one the first time.  Hooray for Tommy!  A few hundred feet further down the road we see another coyote.  “Stop the car again!!”  (Snap, Snap.)  He was closer; maybe this will be a better picture than the first.   When I see a third coyote Eric doesn’t bother with stopping the car because apparently he didn’t see it.  Apparently no one saw it but me.  Determined to get out of there, Eric makes a run for the switchbacks until we stop the car one more time to watch wild turkeys in the field and to warn them that Mr. Coyote is fast approaching.  “Look out turkeys!”  “Gobble, gobble, gobble” said the turkeys.   

Now we’re really hungry and all I can think of is that earlier in the day we passed a bunch of tex-mex restaurants on Route 25.  They all looked promising but the one we chose was the INN AT Tres Pinos because it had the most cars in the parking lot – a sure sign, says Eric, that the food is good.  It also has good cars!  Stepping out of our Escape rental I can’t believe my eyes - Porches, Alpha Romeos, Beamers, an Opal, oh my!  We had hit a road rally!!!  To be exact, we ran into the 2012 Faultline 500.  

That’s it.  But just think… we saw all that and more not on Mulberry Street but just South of San Jose.

The Day Tom "Sawyered" Anna

www.voit.org

Returning to where we last left CA seemed liked the thing to do.  So after big hugs at the airport, Tommy, Anna and I jumped into the Ford Escape with Eric and headed straight to Nick’s Seaside Restaurant in Rock-Away-Beach, Pacifica.  Rock-Away Beach is just as we left it – cold, grey and windy.  Apparently the surfers love it.  Eric says this piece of beach is second to surfing in Hawaii.  Who knew?  

For the time being, we are not the BAT team but the NATs (Nancy, Anna and Tommy).  Bobby is not here – he’s at Philmont stretching his wings, if not his back for the 35-40 lbs he has to carry across Boy Scout’s premiere national high adventure camp for the next two weeks.   But you can see for yourself – he’s not suffering.  http://www.philmontscoutranch.org

Once inside Nick’s Restaurant we choose a booth by the window and proceed to squish Eric in the middle for missing him so much since he’s been gone.    After we bring Eric up to speed on what’s been happening back at home (which really is another story) Eric starts describing our new set-up.  Last year we stayed at The Pines at North Park in San Jose.  We know we’re not going back there but still we’re pretty disappointed.  After all, for four weeks last summer it was our home away from home.  We set up our x-box and computers and jammed away on media entertainment when we were not tooling around CA’s great state and national parks.  Now we are officially nomads traveling from one Synergy corporate apartment to another.   Eric does his best to explain the lay-out of the apartment and how the kids are going to like it just as much.  “You see” he says, “there are two great bedrooms for you to choose from.  One is bigger and has a double bed with its own door leading to the balcony and the other is tucked away upstairs; it’s smaller with only two twin beds.” 

And that’s’ when it happened – Tommy “Sawyered” Anna. 

“Anna, I’ll let you have the bigger room.”

You do remember that part in the story when Tom Sawyer convinced Huckleberry Finn to give him his apple in exchange for white-washing the fence – right?  From here on out, I have a whole new perspective on how to win friends and influence people and it’s not the Dale Carnegie way – it’s Tommy’s Way.

I am still thinking about this until Eric ushers us out of the restaurant, back into the car and says we have time for a short hike before going “home.”  Oh good.  We need something right now to take our minds off of everything.   He takes us to Portola Redwoods State Park where we follow the Iverson trail next to Pescadero Creek for a ½ mile.  Earlier in the day, Eric ran 7 miles here but we choose a naturalist pace in order to stop and look at every banana slug that crossed our path and every wild flower I can name including Trillium and Forget-Me-Not.  J 

By the time we reach our apartment it’s 7 o’clock CA time and we’re exhausted.  But there is only one way to adjust to the time zone quickly and that is to stay up.  And there is only one way to stay up at this point and that is to get ice cream.  And so, we load into the Escape once again and head over to Santana Row – Santa Clara’s poshy retail development that makes me feel a bit like I’m back on Bethesda Row, including the fact that there is NO ice cream store to be found, anywhere!  But they have frozen yogurt – yuck.  “Too tart” says little Blonde riding hood…  (Anna cannot be convinced that yogurt is just like ice cream even if we tell her how it’s not really good for you once you know how much sugar is in this popular frozen replacement.)

I know this first, half-day entry is getting long but I cannot end it before counting the outrageous cars we saw on Santana Row – First a Delorean, then a Tessla, finally four souped up vintage cars that no longer go by their original names – one was converted jeep with an exposed engine, another had ZZ Top flames, the third one had skulls and the last one was a bug sporting fins.