I'm filthy and I'm loving it!

It's wonderfully grey today and it has been a great day! I think I've gotten into the swing of things and the TV hasn't been on at all. I went out for what was just going to be a short trip down to the beach and didn't come back for hours. I don't really know what time I left the house but I got back around 1:00. I went down to the beach just out from the house and it was so wonderful and grey and sooo quiet. There wasn't a single person on the beach but me. There was no wind at all and the waves weren't even making much noise. I went down without my backpack or bag for shells and came back with a pocket full! I even rescued a starfish! We'll call him Starsky. Starsky was washed up on the beach but was in great condition. Now, me being the ocean lover that I am I wanted to put Starsky somewhere safe so that when some stupid people came and saw him there they wouldn't be picking at him and decide to take him home. I carried him over to a rock formation and put him in a safe place. I call it starfish gulch because there were so many in that location. For some reason starfish seem to be my favorite thing to find at the beach. Yesterday I didn't see all that many and I started to get worried that their numbers were declining. I saw plenty of them today! Here is a picture of Starsky happy as can be and reaching his little sucker things out to find something to grab on to. When I came back later he had moved over quite a bit.

I decided to keep on going south along the same trail I took yesterday. I happened upon a family that had two people out in the water abalone diving. I tried to take some pictures of them out there but they didn't come out very well. I got quite irritated and sad when I saw that the kids had taken a starfish off of the rock he was on and moved him somewhere else. I tried to explain to the little girl why it isn't good to tear them off of the rocks and is better to just leave them be. I think I decided that I would write a children's book about how to visit the tidepools to educate them about everything they see there.

I saw many deer today, too many to count, matter of fact I've seen a multitude of animals here including: seals, tidepool creatures, wild turkeys, many types of birds, today I saw a snake and sheep, and others.

After feeling somewhat antsy yesterday I decided to just spend as much time outside today as possible. Because of the overcast sky it's not as windy and it's much nicer to be outdoors. I decided to walk to the chapel. I followed the trail through the meadow and the woods to get there. One of the many things I love about this magical place is the many different types of environments here. One minute you can be out in a meadow listening to birds and the ocean and the next minute you can be in a cypress grove or a forest that reminds me of the Ewok forest from Star Wars. Matter of fact the first house that we ever stayed in at Sea Ranch really reminded me of that, as a kid I felt like an Ewok could come out of the forest at any minute. On my way to the chapel I came across the sea Ranch herd of sheep, it was kind of funny!
The chapel at Sea Ranch is absolutely amazing. It was built as a non-denominational one for every person to find quiet and peace. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.
There was so much more that I wanted to say in this post but now that I'm not out in the wonderful environment I forgot a lot of it. Enjoy the pictures!

Yesterday I hung out at the Lodge for a bit after shutting down the computer. I've never really explored around here so I did! These pictures are from yesterday.