A little weekend adventure lead me way up the coastline, to where Southern California doesn’t feel southern anymore. Pismo Beach and the Monarch Butterfly Grove were beckoning and I wanted to see the place where thousands of honey colored beauties rest their wings in January and February on their long migration. I had read about this as a child in the cherished pages of National Geographic. Some kids hoarded money or toys, we hoarded Nat Geo magazines, their glossy pages taking us on adventures around the world, to places we couldn’t even begin to imagine. We read the stories of the great Monarch migration and planted milkweed by our horse’s watering trough to give them food. Strolling around the grove I never imagined the Monarchs resting high high in the tippy top of the Eucalyptus trees. And so instead of trying desperately to get a good shot with my sadly too short lens, I leaned against the wood fence and peered up into the tall, branching trees to watch them soar through patches of streaming golden sunlight to settle together for the cool night.
I wandered down the sandy path to the beach and watched the seagulls soar and listened to the waves crash. On the beach rested a stranded seabird with a broken leg. How harsh nature can be. How unfair the final resting place of this wild and free creature, trapped, to be peered at and poked. I sat above him on the sandy bluff, a loose companionship, watching the beauty of his light colored eyes and dark feathers glistening in the evening light.
A weekend full of beautiful sea views, soaring butterflies and beachy adventures is a weekend well spent.
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