California Girls

Oh, there are so many things I haven't posted about yet... There's our trip to the Jelly Belly Factory, but that was about a month ago, and at this point looks like it's never going to get up here. =P There's my trip to Santa Barbara last weekend, and also my first Rover Dance rehearsal. And I'd be loathe to forget the happy cat pheromones! Hmmmm, I think I'll talk about Santa Barbara =D.

Three weeks ago, Jenny drove Shasta out to California. Now all of us are California girls. I've been here in the Golden State for 5.5 years now, Jenny for 1.5, Mitzi for a month and a half, and now Shasta for 3 weeks. And that's our little family.

Last weekend I drove down to Santa Barbara to visit Jenny and Shasta. We took Shasta on her very first trip to the beach. And like any good California girl (Jenny and myself included, of course), Shasta makes a stunningly gorgeous beach babe. What do you think?:

Shasta played supermodel, and used up an entire roll of film! Click on the picture (or here) to see the rest of the album. Note the invasive species: iceplant, in the picture of Shasta with a palm tree. Bad iceplant, bad. (and hey, that could potentially be another entry.... Why iceplant is bad! =D).

Shasta had such a great time at the beach. There was so much room to run around in, and so many new smells! New smells like the ocean, the off-shore oil rigs =P, and dead marine life! Mmmmm. There had been a storm the previous week, so there were all sorts of yummy (from a dog's perspective) things washed up on the beach. Things like severed limbs from huge starfish, and even a whole gigantic starfish! And dead whales, mmmmm. Shasta had quite a knack for finding chunks of dead whale. We saw some really huge bones! And we mustn't forget kelp. Shasta's an omnivorous dog, so she's attracted to stinky piles of seaweed too!

(Jenny let Shasta drink directly from my Nalgene. Ewww. I wouldn't mind the dog slobber so much, but dog slobber laced with dead whale and rotting kelp is a little much...)

Other things to see in the pictures... Well, we saw the monarch butterflies migrating through Santa Barbara on their way to Canada. That was neat! The monarch butterfly migration is pretty amazing. The trip itself takes much longer than any single butterfly's lifespan, and yet they all know where they're going! How would you like to have a genetic urge to fly to Canada?

And Shasta tried out surfing! Poor Shasta.... She's such a retriever. Like the butterflies' urge for Canada, Shasta has a need to chase after, find, and return with anything you might throw. We wanted to see how she felt of the ocean, so Jenny threw a rock into the surf for her to chase. Poor Shasta. She kept looking and looking, trying to find that rock. And there were so many that it might be! Eventually Jenny had to pretend to "find" it, and pick up another rock. We need to get a floating toy for Shasta to play with in the ocean. At one point, Shasta got bowled over by a wave. It kind of freaked her out. She didn't really go into the water after that =P.

It was great fun! =)