San Felipe: Days 7-9

FINAL REMINDER: Remember to enter the Valentine's Giveaway! I will draw/announce two names sometime in early February, so you have up until the end of the day on January 31st to enter to win what I think are some fun Valentine goods.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

We've come to the last of the San Felipe photos. I'm kind of sad, because going through them has been like a mini-vacation in itself. I miss the sun!

On our last full day there, we went to town to pick up some souvenirs (vanilla!) and have lunch. On our way to the restaurant, we came across this scene. Some guys with a truck of freshly-caught fish were cleaning them and feeding the scraps to the pelicans. I didn't have the right lens on my camera, so these photos are just kind of snapshotty, but still interesting, I hope.

Here, pelicans! Enjoy some fish carcasses!

I've never really watched pelicans eating up close like this! I could've probably watched them for a few more hours, it was so interesting. They have the craziest bills/throats.

And they're so big! I mean, I knew this, but I never really compared them to seagulls. Despite their size, they seem pretty graceful at flying, even just short hops.

If I were a pelican, I'd likely be on the sidelines. Having to be quick and fight people for stuff is not my style. It would stress me out.

Better tuck in that fish tail before another bird pulls it out!

Don't get bored, okay? Just a few more. I wish I had better photos of the pretty males, with their vibrant red and yellow coloring. They tended to let the females get first dibs. Smart.

Okay, I guess those were all the photos I took on that last day. Now we're on day 8, the day we left. [:(] We got up early for our long drive ahead. The sun was just beginning to rise, and I had time to take a few photos.

And now we're back in California, passing that wind farm again. I couldn't help but take a few more photos while my dad drove.

Sunday (day 9) was spent at my parents' place before I flew home the following day. My mom and I spent some time in the back yard while I took more bird photos.

I was glad to get a shot of a hummingbird by the morning glories, even though it's not that great.

Some birds bathing in my parents' waterfall.

This young bird of prey came and landed in a tree in my parents' yard! I could only get a couple photos before it flew off. It was small enough that I think it was not very old, unless it's just a smaller variety of something.

That's it. :) I hope you enjoyed these. Please see my "mexico" label for other photos from this trip, if you missed any.

[NOTE: I seem to be having that problem again where not all my photos are loading up, so you may see confusing captions under a blank space. I'm not sure what's going on with my gallery but if you reload the page later it might be working.]

San Felipe: Day 6

I had planned to post this earlier, but every evening this week I have felt so drained and unable to spend the energy editing and posting photos. It's fun, but it can be tedious and very time-consuming. Also, I think the time of year just isn't my most productive. I may just try to post on weekends for awhile, and any weekday posts will be a bonus.

Day 6 was Thanksgiving. After the normal morning routine of breakfast and chillaxing al aire libre, we finally headed to the beach!

At first we just relaxed in the sun for awhile. My dad took a walk to learn more about the area and my mom napped (she was still lethargic from being sick, though she felt a lot better). I went swimming a couple of times.

We all watched fish jumping out of the water (I couldn't catch a photo, sorry!), but otherwise there wasn't a lot of sea life at this point.

I had been wanting a photo of a sandpiper, so I was happy to see one!

The tide was starting to go out and reveal the rocks. We all started to do a little exploring in search of clams (an old pastime when visiting this area).

We didn't see many live clams, but we saw a lot of other fun stuff, and I have a bundle of photos for you. First, a cute hermit crab. There were lots of these, but of course they would tuck their little legs in most of the time.

Then came the exciting discovery when my dad decided to flip over a rock (still in search of clams) and we saw an octopus! You can get an idea of his size based on the clam shell, which was probably the size of a quarter.

I raced to take pictures, but these little guys are fast. So then it became a fun activity for my dad to repeatedly flip over rocks so I could take several photos before the octopus was out of sight again.

Almost every larger rock had one or two octopuses underneath.

A couple of them squirted their ink upon being discovered, and my dad's leg got hit one of the times! He says it didn't hurt (I was afraid it would sting). I guess it's just to cloud the water so predators are startled and confused. I don't know, I'm not a marine biologist!

I remember when my niece L and I saw a giant octopus in the Newport science center, and they told us that it could squeeze through a hole with the diameter of a tennis ball (or a baseball?). I bet these guys could get through a centimeter, and I guess it's why they can hide under rocks.

This is the narrowed-down selection of photos. :)

Okay, we're done with those.

My parents are very helpful in assisting me with photos. :) Here's my dad pointing at a little crab for size-comparison.

Then he was able to catch one. So cute! And pretty coloring. You could make a color pallet out of that.

I forget what these little fish are called, but they are super camouflagey. My parents recognized the type of fish but I'm blanking.

There he is again.

A little snail. It's hard to catch these out of their shell.

This rock had all kinds of life on it, including this adorably weird starfish! It seems to be missing an arm.

Now I forgot what that thing is called, too. It's kind of snail-like in that it has the hard shell and soft body and it slithers slowly over the rocks.

I guess that's all the photos I took that day. It was a great time at the beach. I think all Thanksgivings should be spent on the beach looking at cool sea life!

After going home and relaxing/showering, we went out to dinner at a place my parents had been to several times. I had a pork chop dinner with a pina colada, and we all had flan for dessert. My mom was feeling much better after resting, I think, and her appetite was completely back for dinner. It was a good day.

One more Mexico post will happen sometime in the next week (hopefully), and stay tuned, because I'm doing a
♥ Valentine's giveaway ♥! :) I'll post about it soon (maybe tomorrow).

San Felipe: Day 5

[Shrimp boat.]
Time to pick up where we left off with my Mexico trip. It's been awhile, so if you are new or need a refresher, please visit my other posts about this trip:

San Felipe: Day 1
San Felipe: Day 2
San Felipe: Day 3
San Felipe: Day 4
The homeowners nicely invited me to go up to their patio and take pictures of the hummingbirds on the feeder. I sat awhile and took several, but am just posting a few interesting ones here.

A blurry photo, but I couldn't resist posting a tongue picture.

The owners say they have counted up to 15 hummingbirds on and around their feeder (some hovering and waiting for their turn) at once! I only ever saw five at a time, which is still way more than at home where it's rare to even see two on the feeder at once.

The owners also said that their granddaughter (I think it was) actually PETTED a hummmingbird while it was on the feeder!! I wanted to try, but never really got a chance.

This was the ugliest hummingbird, but I think it's a young one that will eventually be pretty.

Chatty.

Ready for takeoff.

Later in the day I took photos of our accommodations, in case you're interested. Starting with the view from our back door.

The main area.

Other side of the main area. Through that doorway you can see another door, which was my parents' bedroom.

Which looked like this.

Or this, from the other side. And then through the door there you can see another door, which is the one that goes out to the outdoor hallway (which leads upstairs to the front of the house).

Here's the bathroom, and then some Mexican money. The exchange was 12 pesos to a US dollar while we were there.

The bills have a cut-out with clear plastic.

My mom found one of those desert pokey things still on her shoe from the day before. They follow you home no matter how hard you try to leave them in the desert.

My mom asked me to French braid her hair. Excellent posture, Mom! After dinner we played Yahtzee, where I finally had some good luck after losing badly to my dad a couple of days before. 1,777! (Now I'm paranoid someone will see a math error.)


My parents working in the kitchen. Me, lazily taking photos of other people working. And that was Wednesday!