#RSRSeesTheUSA Day 35: Monterey Peninsula, CA
Today was full of my favorite kind of beach: where the waves crash up hard against rocks and the water is clear and shades of teal and the wind blows your cheeks fresh.
Photos can’t capture all of that, but I’m going to offer a whole selection of the many images that now populate my camera and my phone that I find so satisfying to look at, even as they will never capture the nuances and multisensory qualities of being there.
Just like I like cities that have a partially rundown feel to them like their best days are behind them, I like nature that shows its weathering and age. So between Point Lobos and 17 Mile Drive, I was very satisfied.
I also had some more excellent animal watching experiences.
In Point Lobos, this beach was full of so many seal pups! They’re so awkward and fluffy and silvery colored.
At a different spot in Point Lobos, this family of geese was right at the base of the stairs when I checked out Hidden Beach. By the time I was ready to climb back up to the path, the geese were also climbing up the stairs. One little gosling was having a really tough time making it up the whole flight of stairs. There was very much peeping from the gosling and honking from the adults, but eventually the little one tried an alternative path and tumbled back down to the bottom.
The adults moved away with the other babies, and with some teamwork from a couple beachgoers and a park docent, we got the baby scooped up and carried to the top of the stairs, where it happily peeped and waddled its way over to reunite with its family.
And at Ford Meadow, this herd of goats (and their accompanying set of dogs) made for a good reminder that not rushing brings good things and that slowing down the pace can let you see more interesting happenings. The goats were hanging out at a stop on 17 Mile Drive that’s noted on the guide map. It’d be easy to give it a drive-by photo or a quick stop (and many people did exactly that). I was feeling tired—I do need to find one place to stay for longer and try to bring back some of my daily rituals that have been fading—and didn’t move on right away from the goat meadow.
Instead I got to sit and watch as the two Great Pyrenees dogs kept defending the goats from anyone who made a move too cross the fence or get too up in the goats’ faces. I got to watch as the man responsible for the goats came to feed them with his shepherd dog who was so brilliant and responsive to the man’s clicks and whistles. I got to see the goats trying to creep closer to the bales of grass that were there for lunch, only to be herded back over and over by the herding dog. And I stayed long enough to watch the man call back the dog, and for the goats to run over to the scattered bales to eat.
It was awesome to watch dogs with jobs (apparently, according to Anne Barrow, the goats also have jobs… helping fight fires?? Please do explain to me all these animals’ jobs in the comments) do their thing. And, I would argue, I got a much more interesting experience out of stopping at that spot than most of the typical 17 Mile Drive goat spotters. I offered up an hour of my time instead of their typical 30 seconds or less, but by sacrificing convenience and planning, I got to watch a whole complex range of cool animal interactions.
Today was a good reminder to myself that it’s OK not to treat this trip like a predetermined vacation experience (something I’ve been feeling guilty over… I can find plenty of things to feel guilty over). I don’t have to keep on squeezing in sightseeing just because I’m near these places. I’d found that balance in the first part of the trip, but the influx of dear friend visiting in the last couple weeks and the plethora of things to see in a relatively small area have wooed me into more go-go-going.
