John: In our rental car (a 2005 Chevrolet Malibu), Pat, Bobbie, and I left Pasadena for Shell Beach Wednesday AM. We made the trip via CA 134 and US 101 reasonably easily and, after 4.5 hours (including a stop for lunch), we arrived at the Laughing Buddha House on Catalina St. (map).

Lunch at the Anderson Pea Soup shop in Buellton, a place probably familiar to just about anyone who has driven along US 101, allowed us to muse about why servings are so large; some readers may be surprised to know that I only ate half my veggie sandwich. Part of the reason I did not eat my entire sandwich was that I had a milkshake, a rare event, and it was quite thick and filling. Surely, between the shake and the huge, whole-wheat bun on my sandwich, I got enough calories to nourish and sustain a human for an entire day. What's with this? Why so much on one plate? No wonder so many people in the US are overweight. Too bad there's so much waste when so many people in the world are hungry.

Arriving at our digs in Shell Beach in mid-afternoon allowed us a chance to walk a couple of hundred meters to the water. The first image for this page shows Bobbie and Pat at a railing overlooking the bluff to the beach, with the Pacific in the background. With strong, late-afternoon and evening sun, I was only able to get shadowed faces. The larger, linked image provides an expanded view that shows some of the seaside.

Pat and Bobbie took a few minutes to sit on one of the available benches and chat. In the larger photo linkedto the image at the right Pat is using binoculars to look at the collection of birds preparing to roost on the rocks off the beach. Cormorants, gulls, and Brown Pelicans were congregating there. We also saw many other species, including Scrub Jays, Mockingbirds, Mourning Doves (larger than our Virginia version), House Sparrows, Starlings, and others. Of special interest to Pat and me were the Night Herons in the area; we were able to see nesting spots, both genders, and juveniles. (Because we did not carry a book and had limited Internet access, we were unsure of the other species we saw.)

Thursday the 7th was my mother's birthday. She elected to have dinner at the Laughing Buddha House, so I pan-seared some salmon and served it with a raspberry-balsamic reduction, rice, and asparagas. No one complained. After dinner, we went for another walk and Pat caught a picture of Bobbie and me that is linked to the smaller one here. For desert there was ice cream accompanied by cookies, which we had while watching A River Runs Through It.

Friday, Bobbie took a train back to Los Angeles where a friend met her and gave her a ride to Pasadena. We remembered previous train trips, including a cross-country trip in the 1960s when I was surprised to find a school chum on the same train. We also discussed the current state of service in Charlottesville; Bobbie recalled the two different stations that were both in use during her childhood. We met the Amtrack 798 in San Luis Obispo where a conductor was preparing to supervise the service, as shown here, and she was on her way home.