Monterey, oh Monterey! Pacific Grove, oh Pacific Grove! Lilies growing bigger than your fist, birds of paradise blooming…and it’s winter! We hooked up with Jay Ireland (ImagingFoundation.org), a professional wildlife photographer that Kent befriended on various dive trips.
They did a couple dives in Monterey Bay, and checked out kelp forests, abalone, neudebrancs (sp?), sea pins, sea bass, link cod, and various crustaceans. Kent made a few purchases at Backscatter, updating his underwater camera gear. Jay took us out in his Zodiac in the Elkhorn slough, which is a wildlife refuge. Here you can view scores of sea otters, California brown seals, and hundreds of birds just hanging out…a photographer’s dream! On the morning
we left, we had some trouble with the truck (I won’t go into the embarrassing details) and ended up stranded in Prunedale. Actually, the guys who owned the auto shop were pretty interesting characters, and we had a hearty discussion about the movie, “What the Bleep Do We Know….” (check this movie out if you haven’t seen it; portrays the power of thought to assist in shaping one’s reality). We spent the night in the auto shop parking lot and the next day, Jay drove down, picked us up, and off we went again for a full day of scanning the slough. Click, click, click. We ended the day at another fine Mexican restaurant for seafood tacos and libations in the marguerita family. Onward, ho!
Drove a few hours inland to visit Jill Duthie. We worked together in rehab. in Anchorage many years ago and she now lives in Stockton, where she is professor of speech pathology at University of the Pacific (whom, by the way, UCSB just kicked their butts in basketball). Go Gauchos! The first time Kent & I (being Midwesterners) had artichokes was dinner at Jill’s house in Anchorage (she’s a California girl), and here we were, eating artichokes together again, talking about old times, our kids growing up, and “shop talk” about caseloads, therapist friends, language theories…until almost 2 am. Jill made our wedding cake (carrot, with Alaskan wild flowers on top), and we always said it was the best carrot cake we ever had (she pulled the 28 year old recipe from her recipe box and made us a copy). Just a wonderful time seeing her again after so many years.
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Drove back to the coast and camped at Wright Beach, one of the most dangerous beaches in California…sleeper waves, strong backwash and rip tides! Great beach for collecting colored stones and jade pebbles. We’re headed for Redwood National Park in northern California. Ultimately, for the short term, bound for Coos Bay, Oregon to meet Arnold & Lucille (Alaskan friends-Athabascan) for a pow wow. Not just a rendezvous, but a real Indian pow wow…dancing, drumming, and music.
At the pow-wow, we won a free night's stay at The Mill Casino, so we stayed another night. Played a few slots, watched movies, then headed back up the coast the next morning. Stopped in Salem, Oregon and visited my old college friend Tim Greer; he lives on a beautiful farm. We had a good dinner and great conversations about long lost friends...to the Big Bang theory...to Oregon politics...to the health benefits of cursing....ha!!! Loved it. Next stop, Portland. 
