Feeling Land Locked and Reminiscing

I love California! Brian and I took a 10-day trip to San Francisco when we were dating. He surprised me with a return trip to propose 7 month later (that's another post). We packed our bags and moved to Monterey after we got married (yet another post). And a year ago this week, we took a 10 year anniversary trip back to San Francisco and Monterey. We went with some of our friends also celebrating their 10th. Much of Northern California was experiencing wild fires so our original plans to explore Big Sur were not possible. I was bummed! 

We decided instead to do a whale watching trip as our friends had never been on one. Brian and I had been fortunate enough to go on several whale trips before and knew it would be a good time. On the way out I began to get worried that we may not see a whale and our friends would be disappointed in us.....I'm a pleaser. So I started fervently praying, PLEASE God let us see a whale, one of your wondrous creations, let it be a really good experience etc. And did God deliver? Oh YES He did! It was an experience beyond anything we could have imagined or hoped for. We were told we had the golden ticket, this mother and her calf approached our boat. As they got closer the calf lagged away but the momma she interacted with us for 20 minutes. She was truly amazing and so close that I was nervous--my husband and friends laughed at me later about this--but, she was massive: 50 foot long and just an arms length away! She was checking us out as much as we were watching her. We were told that because of their small eyes whales use sonar to see, it's located on their underside. At one point she flipped over and did a sonogram on us--so COOL! When you are searching for whales you watch for the blow-spout-which means they are about to surface. We didn't only see the water fly, my friend was covered in the stuff! It smelled awful; poor thing walked around the rest of the day smelling of creel--but wore it as a badge of honor. It WAS an honor, one that cannot be explained. I wish that I had the words to describe it but I don't. It is something I will never forget! 

My friend loves this shot, the people in that boat over there were probably thinking they signed up with the wrong tour. 

Those are my hands---that's how close we were. 

The white things are barnacles. 

This was her preparing to do the sonar.

And this was one of the last glimpses we got of her. Beautiful! 

It was a spiritual experience for me as well like God was saying hello, I hear you and I love you. Funny, my mom felt this same sort of experience in these redwood trees of Muir Woods just 60 miles away about ten years earlier---

I LOVE CALIFORNIA!