Coast to Coast

I got to San Juan Capistrano on Monday and Kelle was ready for me. I no longer sleep on the patio (I'm quarantined in the house from Kelle and Mom, as my bedroom has its own entrance) but the patio is still my living room, dining room, kitchen, and yoga studio. This was my complement of dishes for the week that was waiting for me when I arrived. Out here I have a coffee maker, hot pot, refrigerator, and loads of snacks, all thanks to my sister. The patio is large enough that we eat dinner out here together, distanced, every night. (Mom is in bed and basically non-responsive, 24/7.) With a resident hummingbird named El Chapo to brighten my day and beautiful weather, it's not such a bad place to be.

This is El Chapo. He's like Kelle's pet. Out here in the back he comes to his nectar stop at the feeder or hangs out on a nearby leaf. And when Kelle is at the front door or right outside the front door, he'll often fly over and say hi. It's so cute.

This morning I ran a few errands and stopped at a park overlooking the ocean in Capo Beach. The water was pretty and these squirrels were an unexpected surprise. Apparently there's food-a-plenty here.

And the squirrels are tame. I say this because they came right up to me. (This picture was taken without using my zoom.)

This is the squirrels' view. When my parents lived in San Clemente my dad used to ride his bike here. It's a lovely place called Pines Park. I drive by it fairly often but haven't stopped since I was last here with my dad about a million years ago. So I was glad to take it in on such a pretty day.

Out here on the patio, Simba is my buddy and my guard dog. He likes to lay on my yoga mat with me, which I don't think he realizes I find just a tad annoying, but mostly quite endearing. I've been telling him about how he's going to get a brother named Sirius and how he'll get to play in the snow in Colorado, but I don't think he'll fully understand it until he gets there.

Meanwhile in Baltimore, Mary and Andy are getting to know their new neighborhood. Over the weekend they went to a local restaurant to pick up some lunch.

Tikka's getting to know the neighborhood too. What do you think, does she seem like she's getting tired of having her picture taken? I told Mary that this one should be called "Tikka is so over Instagram."

I got a Minolta 35mm camera for my 16th birthday. I used and loved it for years, and then when I met him Brad had an automated camera so I got lazy and eventually stopped using mine.  After a long time gathering dust and moving everywhere with us, I decided it was time to finally part with it and so Mary recently became its new owner. She's taken her first roll of film including this one.

John and Troy continue to have a fire near them. My sister Kathy took this picture from Denver, and sad to say that Colorado has enough fires that this isn't even the one that's near Fort Collins, but it's in their general direction and you get the idea. This picture is the East Troublesome Fire and it's the fourth largest wildfire in Colorado's history. It's near the fire that's closer to Fort Collins, which is called the Cameron Peak Fire (and is, sadly, the largest wildfire in Colorado history). I'm hoping that the next time I write a post I'll have better news about the fire situation.