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EUREKA! THE PACIFIC!




It was mid-morning yesterday when the Yard Man and I got to San Juan Capistrano, situated on the tip edge of the country, overlooking the left-side ocean. I have to say--it was a fabulously warm and sunny mid-morning! For ever so long we simply sat on a rock jetty that stretched out into the ocean; it gave us a perfect view of surfers (who spent most of their time waiting for the perfect wave [as I waited for a perfect picture of that perfect wave, with them riding perfectly atop!] The Yard Man was doing his best to aid in
the picture procurement:


"Are you ready? Here comes a good wave!...Ooops, no, they didn't like that one."
"Oh, there's one waaay out that's lookin' good...nope, they didn't want that one."

"Wow, I bet they'll try to ride this one that's coming...get ready!"










I could have enjoyed doing nothing else all day, but we wanted to see the town, and the old Spanish mission--the one made famous by swallows, you know. Hmm, Dear Reader, my eyebrows are raised; DO you know? (It's okay if you don't have all the details in your head...here you go).





















This mission was founded in 1776, and there's lots of original architecture to see. In fact, the oldest building in California that's still in use is the chapel right here on the grounds. There are lovely gardens, too. It seemed that everywhere I looked there was another picturesque photo op. So we lingered a while, until my camera was saying "I'm stuffed! "I'm stuffed!" every time I tried to take a picture. (Really crying, "Media card full! Media card full!) Oh, I found it so painful to have to go back and purge that card of earlier photos in order to squeeze in more!












So we left the mission. We spent some time browsing through shops in the charming little downtown area, but before long we heard the ocean calling us back.








We drove south a bit to another spot on the edge. The beach here was made up of pebbles--pebbles that had me murmuring superlatives and wishing to dump the clothes and shoes and toiletries out of my suitcase (not to mention the sizable bag of rocks I'd already squirreled away in there) and tote home enough of them to make my own little San Juan Pebbly beach in the bathtub!


And, ah! (gasp) Look at this gorgeous, exotic seaweed! I'd like some of that, too, for my bathtub beach.

As I gathered up (a mere handful of) pebbles and prepared to leave the ocean, I commented to the Yard Man how the eastern ocean and the western ocean each have their own unique beauty. "Well," he said, "and you've seen them both in the last two weeks!" We stopped to calculate and found it to be true--two weeks ago to the day I arrived at the OBX and that beautiful right-side ocean!

But now the sun was dropping to the horizon. It was time to do a one-eighty and say goodbye to all oceans. As we turned to head for the car, a whistle blew; a very loud whistle! Before we could say, "Of course! A train! How could a day in the west go by without hearing a train?!" it had streaked on by.



(We were slightly horrified by a speeding train on a beach! But even more horrified by
our sudden change of good fortune...for you see, Dear Reader, in the interest of full disclosure,   the following two hours of traveling east could be termed a DIABOLICAL DENT in our vacation. What we planned to do was get a head start on our journey eastward, a pleasant hour or two of driving before it got fully dark, stopping for a nice dinner en route. The DD: Rain, which started up as we left the coast, making the sky prematurely dark and gray; Friday night rush-hour traffic on all roads (We weren't that far from Los Angeles, after all), making the decision about exactly WHICH route would allow us to move along faster than fifteen miles per hour a tricky and difficult one; Teeth-grinding and route-switching and accusations. Arrrrgh. Two hours later we'd progressed thirty miles. And two hours later we'd regressed twice that much in our spirits and good will toward each other, and were going without dinner! It wasn't 'til this morning that we shook off the chill of that big old DD. We agreed that all dents needn't be diabolic, and vowed we'll keep our wits about us next time!)

Hey, hey, and we've still got a day of vacation left!
And it's another bright sunny day!
(You'll hear about it manana)


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