Vanchella Vagabonds

I'm usually on a cruise this time of year at my birthday. In fact, for 2020, the plan had been to be on a Transatlantic cruise from Spain to the States, arriving to spend the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays with Emily. In addition to celebrating my birthday, I was looking forward to being at sea during the election period, blissfully away from the inevitable drama and trauma. Well, at least part of the plan is on track. And, silver lining, my birthday celebrations got to include Emily, which has not been the case for the past four years!  Since I wasn't cruising, I did at least want to get on the water for my birthday, so I scheduled a pontoon nature boat tour at Cachuma Lake . This is a really beautiful spot, and we started out with a nice picnic near some of the campgrounds. After lunch, we headed on over to catch our ride. We saw many different types of birds, including coots, herons, hawks, and even a bald eagle. Magnificent! We also learned that under the lake there is...

We were back in Goleta with Emily at her studio apartment for the remainder of September. Upon arrival, we had a couple of days of lingering effects of fires, but air quality soon improved and has been good since. Hoping it will remain that way. So many people impacted and those firefighters are true heroes. Since Emily was still working at arrival, we had lots of beautiful days in the neighborhood: Beach days   This way to the beach! These rocks and the photos below are from Arroyo Burro Beach , also called Hendry's by the locals (that's what we call it 😁😎). This beach is a bit more rugged and is great for walking.  There are many interesting rocks, some shells, many birds and other sea creatures. On our last visit, I captured (for my Seek app) two different sea anemones!          L to R: Scaled worm snail, a cool rock (love the textures and colors), aggregating anemone, and feather boa kelp (notice how the root is attached to that huge rock, y...