Isn't that gorgeous? Let's call it Rancho South. We all needed that rest away from work, and we had a wonderful time.

This was the fifth year that Sara and Jake joined us for our annual vacation, which means that it's our fourth anniversary together (sort of � the first actual date didn't happen until October something, but the real possibilities of a polyamorous relationship began during the vacation). Congratulations to us.

We also left behind a lot of dead fish. There was a red tide while we were down there, which means that the ocean water is lacking oxidants or something and the fish in the area die and wash up on the beach. It's pretty rank. Still, a week at the beach surrounded by stinky dead fish is still better than a week at work.

I think this is an eel. It had a little snout and teeny weeny eyes. It sure is interesting during red tide to get a look at all the stuff that's out there in the water with you. There were spiky blowfish looking things. The biggest fish I saw was about two-and-a-half feet long. And they're all dead. The mass decomposition kind of gets into your lungs, making you cough, and burns your eyes. So we spent a lot of time at the pool and not much time on the beach. The water actually seemed to be back to normal by the end of the week, but the beach was still populated with bloated specimens, so we still didn't go ocean swimming.

The coolest thing we saw all week was the turtle rescue folks digging out a sea turtle nest to count the hatched and unhatched eggs. They found six live ones in one nest and we got to witness the little buggers crawling down to the sea. Deb and I have been going to this little town for eight years now, each time during hatching season, and this is the first year we've gotten to see the baby sea turtles. They're adorable.

There were 79 hatched eggs in the nest and nine unhatched. I didn't hang around to see the full count of the second nest because something was biting my legs. I really admire those volunteers. Both retirement age, out in the late day sun, on their knees in the sand, digging about two feet down to a nest.

Apparently there was a big storm earlier in the year that wiped out the nest markers, and they thought they had lost the exact locations. Then a fox took up residence and started digging for eggs, and they were able to remark. Cool, eh?

Of course I have lots of stories to relate and two date reports. We had TWO sleepover swaps this week. That was wonderful. But I'm going to go read some and eat lunch.

I'm glad to be back home. And extra glad I took today off, too. I'll try to write more up today. And there's more pictures to come.