{pretty,happy, funny, real} - beach edition

Happy Thursday! As Mr. Rogers reminded us, "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood...won't you be my neighbor?" In this era of electronic neighborhoods, one of the best is centered around the blog Like Mother, Like Daughter, especially the weekly linkup to share our pretty, happy, funny and real experiences.

The Pirate and I live about a mile from a huge beach - miles long - that usually is completely empty. The reason is that there is a nasty undertow there that will suck you in if you're foolish enough to try swimming there. But the beach is lovely, and the waves are awesome, and the dogs love the freedom of a visit.

The beach is perfect for walking and having picnics and riding horses and watching whales and all the other things you might think of doing on a beach. Most visitors to our town who want to get up close and personal with the ocean want to swim or surf, so they don't go to our beach. So it's left for the locals to enjoy, which we do.

{pretty}

Here's one of our dogs, taking a break from a lot of running. The two people you see were with us...and there's nobody else around!

{happy}

While we were at the beach with our guests, the only other people we saw were some people on horseback.

There aren't many shells on this beach because the dropoff is steep and the waves are large, but our guests looked diligently and found some.

{funny}

We found this dead puffer fish fairly high up the beach. Puffer fish (botetes in spanish) are a real delicacy down here - like lobster. If you don't know how to gut them, they have a sac that contains poison which can kill you if you eat it. But the local fish shop has them occasionally which is a real treat for us!

{real}


There are two bodies of water for people to enjoy on the Baja Peninsula - the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of California (traditionally known as the Sea of Cortez). The Gulf gets most of the people who want to be in the water, because as you can see, the Pacific is a dangerous ocean to mess with. The waves on the day this picture was taken probably averaged 10 feet high, which is common here.

For more pretty, happy, funny and real things away from the beach, swim on over to Like Mother, Like Daughter and enjoy!