Adventure...

Usually when we go visit Karl, we take a little side trip on our second day there. This time we decided to take on the Los Padres National Forest and make our way to Ventura & Oxnard, CA. Little did we know that not only would it be a GORGEOUS drive, we would also end up at the visitor's center of the Channel Islands National Park! We had to hit Olive Garden for some lunch and then it was off to the beach!

This pic is of the islands from the San Buenaventura State Beach. There is a pretty thick layer of ocean fog on top of the water so you can only see the outline of the islands but it looks pretty awesome~! You can barely see the islands but the best thing in this pic is the pelican that is diving into the water--After he resurfaced from his dive, he just sat there and floated on the water for a few minutes~!
This is the pier at San Buenaventura State Beach

If you look close, you can see the lighthouse in the distance--that is farther south toward the Channel Islands Harbor

Another pic of the lighthouse and the pelican!

At the visitor's center for the nat'l park, they had a tank with lots of different fishes and sea creatures in it--this little sea anemone was my favorite!

Here is another shot of the some of the residents of the tank--look at the size of that starfish! There were a whole bunch of them!

I told J to say hi to this fish (I think it's a flounder) and it was like it was saying hi back to him!

J was in awe of all the fishies in the tank--He loved it so much that he didn't want to leave!

This is a sign they have in the visitor's center

My cutie boy standing by the entrance to the park's visitor's center

Those mountains poking up out of the water are some of the Channel Islands!

The wind was blowing (of course) when we were there and the waves were really big so J was a little scared. I couldn't get him to go very close to the water and was staring at it as if to freeze it in place with his eyes so I just snapped this pic of the two of us when I had the chance~!

The islands and the beautiful waves--I could have stayed there for hours!

J was so excited to go swimming in the ocean...until he figured out that the big waves were in the ocean and they were scary!He was telling me that the water was "over there"

Here is a view to the north from the Harbor

These next few shots are of the canyon that we drove thru to get from Maricopa to Ventura. Parts of it remind me of places in Utah--it was beautiful~a very enjoyable drive!

Yes, that is the road you can see zigzagging thru the mountains!

This is a view of the Cuyama valley as we were going up the canyon

We had a great time visiting Karl and going to the beach! Labor Day weekend will be our next road trip...Pismo Beach, here we come!

(I will have pics from our visit with Karl in about a month or so)