And Now Let Us Ponder Migration...

Indeed, it is a wondrous thing. Migration is really adaptation, and there is some of that going on here right now.

First, the butterflies. We went today on an exploratory bike ride that brought us, amongst other places, to Natural Bridges State Park, a small park in town. This little bit of green space happens to contain a grove of eucalyptus trees and, despite the fact that eucalyptus is not native to california, in just a hundred years or so Monarch butterflies have really decided that this tree is for them. And, as a result, Natural Bridges State Park has become an annual repository for a good part of the west coast population of monarch butterflies. We'd been by once before, last weekend, and were less than impressed. Today was much more, well, impressive. All of these beauties arrived over the last few weeks.

And its not just butterflies. With them came the other migrators that we've noticed thus far anyway - birds (saw my first loon in the line up surfing pleasure point on thursday), and whales (haven't seen any yet, but you know they are here. This place is practically crawling with parasite-ridden, krill-stank marine beasties)

And then there is us. Just another couple of migrators. Passed a few key tests of survivability (to put it in those adaptation terms) this last week. First, I sat for my first exams in about 12 years. Didn't do so bad either. In fact, if you come over to the sh*tbox you just might see one of those beauties hanging on the fridge.

And, on a sadder note, the mini-van lost its Washington name tags and is now being forced to identify itself with California. We've already covered this territory though, so enough said.

And, perhaps most importantly, Christine was hired by a local non-profit as their Outreach and Promotions Coordinator. She starts tomorrow. If you are lucky, I might post a picture of her in her power outfit in a future blog.

Ian