West Marin

You either love this countryside or you hate it. The line of blue sky can be seen above the hill. sometimes the fog lifts completely but many others it can stay around all day. It can be a welcome relief from the inland heat, but I don't think I could live in it year 'round. One reason we moved out of Berkeley was to get away from the summer fog that often didn't lift until 2pm and then came back at 4pm! 

We enjoyed coffee and pastries on our porch with Marc and Teri this morning, watching the activity at the boat ramp and discussing the rather weird cocktails offered at dinner last night. I had something called a spicy watermelon Bee's Knees. (first extra). It came in a bear shaped glass which made us all laugh because I had been ranting about cocktails served in Mason jars. Marc insisted on taking my picture as I had my first sip to register my expression. It wasn't bad, but didn't taste at all of watermelon and not much of tequila. I rarely drink cocktails but was intrigued by the offerings which included house made herbal tinctures. 

Eventually a yellowjacket discovered my coffee with sugar and called all its friends to come give it a try, so we decided it was time to say good-bye until next year. 

Marc also sent a picture of us walking Spike on Doran beach.(second extra) It is dog friendly but Spike still had to be on a lead, so we repaired to our favorite Dillon beach where he ran around investigating the mounds of seaweed and jellyfish which had washed up onto the sand. The jellyfish, velella velella  or 'by the wind saliors', are actually colonies of hydroids that float on the surface of the ocean. They have a clear, oval shaped float with a sail like structure on top and tentacles with stinging cells that hang down in the water. There were hundreds of them on Dillon Beach. Here's a link to an article about them if you're interested.

We drove home through the lifting fog, getting home at about noon where it was sunny and 87F.  I was a lovely little break....