Tomales Bay

No gracefully leaping beauties at this beach today, but a lot of dogs and a beautiful, sparkling day. My friend Fran has a fourteen month old German Shorthair Pointer, Ziggy who has unlimited amounts of energy and limited places where he can expend it, so she takes him to the beach quite often.

When I got up this morning and looked out the window, there was nothing but heavy fog, and I stood in my closet for some time contemplating how to dress for a Pilates class, a coffee at Acre with my friend Tobi, followed by a trip to the beach with Fran who met me at Acre. I settled on a large bag into which I kept putting shirts,  jackets, scarves, a hat and a water bottle. In the end, the sun came out during class and I never needed anything in the bag except for my camera which I had forgotten to put in....

I love the drive to the beach over narrow roads winding through hilly pastureland studded with cows, past barns in various stages of dereliction, the odd goat or pig and even a small herd of Highland Cows. They look right at home there too as the terrain is very reminiscent of the Highlands. Others must have felt the same because one of the main little towns in what is now known as the Pt.Reyes National Seashore is called Inverness.

Tomales Bay is at the tail end of the National Seashore and this view is taken from Dillon Beach, one of the few beaches along the coast that allows dogs. And the dogs do love it. It is impossible not to smile at the uninhibited joy the dogs exhibit,* racing through the surf, chasing the birds and each other and digging in the sand. 

There were a lot of birds today...flocks of plovers, sandpipers and even some unusual black and white pelicans*. Ziggy must have run three or four miles for every one of ours, and after a particularly spirited run after a flock of birds that swirled back and forth just above him, he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks and laid down...

But not for long... he soon got his second wind, ran back to the car and slept all the way home.

*extras