Goodnight Moon

We decided to take advantage of the absolutely gorgeous weather and go to Santa Cruz on Monday. Skies were sunny, weather was mild, wind was low, keys were locked in the car...

After we bid farewell to our friend from AAA, we explored a lagoon/wildlife refuge we found. It was about 40 acres of wetlands with wooden footpaths winding through the trees and over the lagoon itself.

Lots of rare birds nested there. We mostly just saw the nests.

We also saw the world's most aggressive carp. I think they're used to being fed by humans, because big schools of them would follow us as we walked the footbridge and jostle the surface of the water. We nicknamed this one Hot Lips:

Then it was on to Natural Bridges, a state park with beautiful arches and bridges the ocean carved from rock outcroppings. In the winter thousands of monarch butterflies rest there, but we'd mostly missed butterfly season. Instead we contented ourselves with exploring tide pools and harassing the inhabitants. We saw starfish:

And sea anemones, which I realized I have spelled (and pronounced!) wrong my entire life:

These were either more anemones or crumb donuts, I'm not sure which:

Mussels on the beach:

And of course, muscles on the beach: