Beach Birthday Babylon

Our coastal regions are almost always foggy, but I wanted to go to the beach on my birthday, regardless of the weather, so Cabana and I took the 40-minute drive to the off-leash beach. We drove through quiet groves of redwoods, past lots of open space and pasture land.

When we got to the parking area, where it costs a ridiculous $7.00 to park, I saw this sign. The guy in the booth asked if I had a dog with me and what breed it was. I asked if they'd had recent trouble with a pit bull, and he said yes. If the trouble had been with a Labrador or a golden retriever, I wondered if they would have dared to put up a sign saying "NO LABS OR GOLDENS ALLOWED". Wouldn't that seem totally wrong? To me, it doesn't seem any less wrong to discriminate against pit bulls.

After getting out of the car, Cabana turned into this strange creature. She's barely recognizable!!

Behind some rocks, Cabana found a whole bully stick! I don't know why someone would give their dog a bully stick at the beach, or even more so, why a dog would ever abandon it. In the photo above, you can kind of see the bully stick crosswise in Cabana's mouth. She kept her distance from me for the next 20 minutes, worried that I would take it away from her (which I probably would have). I was just glad that she stayed close enough for me to see what it was and that she didn't choke herself by running and chewing at the same time.

Cabana doesn't mind getting wet, but she never goes in too deep. She may be a water dog, but she's not a swimming dog. She prefers chasing and being chased by the waves.

There weren't many other people/dogs there, but we did meet this chocolate lab. A few seconds after I took this photo, the chocolate lab vomited. In his pile of barf, there were about 5-10 mysterious pink pellet-shaped objects...strange. To my horror, while I was still trying to figure out what the pellets could possibly be, Cabana gobbled up the vomit, pink pellets and all. I worried that they were medicine or heaven only knows what, but whatever they were, Cabana seemed unaffected by them.

After passing the chocolate lab and gobbling up his vomit, we crossed paths with these little guys. Adorable!

But mostly, we had the whole place to ourselves.

Cabana's birthday is on Tuesday. Maybe we'll have to spend Cabana's birthday at the beach, too!