California Dreaming

This past weekend we flew to California to visit Paul's grandmother MomHelen who lives near Monterey. It was a fantastic trip and such a treat to leave snow and ice early in the morning and by mid-afternoon be walking outside in the sun without jackets. Lena was a big fan! Here Lena and Morgan look toward the hills from MomHelen's patio.

Oranges growing on MomHelen's patio.

A big motivation for our trip was a book project that we're doing with MomHelen. Over the years all of us have been avid collectors of rocks, albeit at times for quite different purposes. MomHelen loves round rocks and has picked many up during her travels around the world. We also love picking up rocks to remember places we've visited and because they are beautiful but enjoy digging into the information they provide about the Earth and its history as well. So, we decided the thing to do is to take a series of photographs of MomHelen's rocks and jointly chronicle their stories - both personal and geologic. Above is a photo of a rock MomHelen collected during a 10-minute train stop in the Gobi Desert in 1981.

Lena and Morgan taking a break below one of MomHelen's paintings.

MomHelen and Lena visiting.

Over the weekend Lena also had her first encounter with the marine realm. Here Paul and her visit at Asilomar beach on the Monterey Peninsula.

The fam with exposures of granite in the background.

Lena confronting a piece of brown algae - somewhat ambivalently - with familial support.

Snails were much more exciting yet also potentially more likely to head for the mouth.
Encrusted limpets with Lena's hand for scale.

Lena was also a huge fan of sand. Here Morgan and Lena commune with quartz for the first time.

She liked 'pickleweed' too.

Morgan and Lena sharing a late-afternoon slice of peach on the patio.

The rocky intertidal near Carmel.

Mussels, snails and barnacles!

Some rocks exposed at the main beach in Carmel, chock-full of the ancient burrows of marine creatures (rental car keys for scale).

Ripples in cross-section exposed in rocks nearby the burrowed ones photographed above.

Lena, Morgan, Paul and MomHelen on the patio.

Several more stones that MomHelen picked up between Washington and California during one of her travels on Route 1.