..again my friends
Sorry this has taken a while to write but squirrel babies have arrived so you all know what that means....   feedings cleanings etc so let me see if I can sum up my trip before I need to start feeding 14 babies again. Ok our trip was awesome, it only stormed the first night and rained off and on for a couple days after that.  We spent the first 4 nights at lake cachuma  in the yurt.  During our first night there it was blustery & raining hard and we lost power a couple of times but luckily it came right back on. Even though all we had was a small light over the door it was nice because it was sooooo pitch black outside and inside.  Oh and did I say that the walk to the bathrooms was about the length of a football field away?  Yup u guessed it, we decided that was crazy to walk to in the pouring down blowing in the wind rain so we had to make do with a tree near our parked car and an umbrella.  Unfortuntly the umbrella was a bad idea because it reversed itself and became useless as soon as we went outside.  We were laughing soooo hard trying not to wet ourselves not that it would have made a difference because we were getting soaking wet anyhow.  That is what happens when one cannot hold their beer and the bathroom is a mile away!  Seems like we had to go every time we finished a beer.  Ahh who cares we thought, were on vacation!!  So the first night was filled with listening to the rain come down upon our yurt (which was loud) and racing outside laughing our heads off every time wondering if we were going to get blown away as we emptied some beer.  I think thats when we started singing, "the answer my friend is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind........   LOL...........  Later on that night we were awoken by the sound of an animal growling/snarling on our deck.  Scared the hell out of us , that is after frantically trying to wake up my friend who was blissfully snoring away.   After many WAKE UPS!!!!!    were whispered shouted she finally woke up.  As we sat up in our bunks listening intently we thought it was either a bobcat or mt.lion , then suddenly we heard an awful cry of another animal as what ever the cat was, went after it.  Mind you this all happened right outside my side of the yurt next to my bunk. We listened for about 10 minutes as the "cat" had it's late night dinner wondering what we going to find outside the next morning and actually thinking about opening our door to peek outside.  Then suddenly we heard growling again and decided that was not such a good idea The following morning we did find "something" maybe blood stain on the deck with raccoon prints around it.  The grass was also pushed down about the size of what a mt. lion would be if he was laying down  in the wet grass.  Whatever happened, there were no remains to be found, thank goodness.   I don't think I could handle that first thing in the morning..  

Night 2.    We had just came back from driving around exploring the area and  noticed we had neighbor campers up the road from us.  We were thinking, bummer we thought we had the place to ourselves, then BOOM!   we thought they were lighting off fireworks or something.  But as we listened more we realized it was guns being shot of.  We fly out the door and look towards the campers and see what looks like cars lined up next to each other up the hill with the headlights all on facing towards our site.  Can u say FREAK OUT TIME?  OMG!   It felt like we were in one of those slasher movies for a minute or two or three!   We paced back and forth trying to figure out what the hell was going while the sounds of gunshots were in the air.   After several minutes we put our brave faces on grabbed beers and our mace and headed towards where the campers were.  talk about feeling like fools,  it wasn't them.  They informed us there was a "redneck private shooting range"  up on the other side of the lake.  Those were their words not mine by the way.  It was all just an illusion from where our yurt was......   man that was a relief, all the while we were walking  up there we were trying to figure out what it was exactly we were going to do if it was some freakin weirdo's,  damn that was scary!!!    so now for the next 2 hours or so we got to listen to guns firing off spoiling the quiet night sounds.  We cursed them the whole time!!!     Finally they stopped, then it started to rain again............  So back inside the yurt we went and fell asleep to the sound of the raindrops overhead.

The next morning we went whale watching on a catamaran with only about 15 other people.  it was small and perfect.  Not one of the big boats with 30 or 40 people on it.   We sat on the front lounging back enjoying the ocean spray as we bounced over the waves heading out looking for whales.  The crew even had beer for us and music lightly playing.  So very relaxing....    After we finally got far enough out, about a 1/2 hour ride , we started to see whales in the distance.  eventually we saw some that were  a lot closer.  I had my video camera and was so excited I didn't hear what kind they were.   I caught bits and pieces of them on camera and I'm working on putting together the good parts I caught for you all to see.  I don't know when that will be, but I promise I will get it done, it was to cool not to share.
The following day we were back out on the pacific ocean on a larger boat headed out to Santa Cruz Island.  It takes about an hour to get out there and we saw a few dolphins on the way....  more on that later.    eventually we were dropped of at the island and had 4 hours to do whatever we wanted.  We picked a trail that was about a 4 to 5 mile hike and went on our way.   We didn't see any critters except for the one raven and a whole lotta scat on the trails.  But the views from the trails made up for that.  it was so quiet & peaceful out there, however I wish the trails didn't have so many hills because it kicked my butt!  My backpack weighed a ton but I trudged on, and on and on.....
After we finally finished our hike we walked the beach which was rocky looking for shells,didn't find any but I did find bones from something.....    Finally our boat came back to pick us up for the hour trip back, and what a ride that was...   We saw a HUGE pod of dolphins, there had to be  hundreds  of them.  Mom's jumping side by side with their babies was the coolest!   They followed us for a good 15 minutes before we had to head back to shore.  I don't remember what kind they were either as I was to excited once again catching them on camera.   I captured a lot on camera and want to add them to the whales I taped which hopefully will turn out really great!   

Well my friends, that was the highlights of our trip.  The last 2 nights were spent at El Capitan Canyon in our safari tent.  Pretty much uneventful just a wind down time for us before we headed back to the real world.  We did enjoy an early morning bike ride down to the beach nearby before we headed home and walked on the beach looking for shells.  Then it was time to hit the road home.....................     
hope this all made sense, its the third time I have attempted it and I finally finished it without it deleting on me once again.   Now its time for me to go feed the little ones, crack open a beer  and finally get some sleep.   will be making an attempt to catch up with everyone as soon as I can and post new pics of the wee furry ones of 2009!  hugs to all thanks for reading...................