Field Trip

Recently I spent a few days visiting a friend who lives in Southern California. I'm here to tell you, the weather was perfect. Then I came back here and the next day it snowed. Oh well.

My friend lives right on the beach, and we also spent a day driving out to the desert. There is so much I could write about it. But this post is going to be a list of the animals and other noteworthy items I saw.

• Dolphins, playing in the surf outside my friend's house.
  
• A hummingbird
  
• A desert lizard
  
• Two or three beach lizards (on the cliffs above the beach, not on the beach itself)
  
• Also in the desert, a jackrabbit and a couple medium-sized desert birds, looked rather like quail.
  
• Some crows and seagulls (unusual because they were familiar)
  
• One gray squirrel, rather scrawny-looking, not like the muscular gray squirrels we have around here.
  
• Many of the orange and blue flowers that are called "birds of paradise."
  
• Some trees which my friend claimed were also birds of paradise. All I have to say is, birds that size are really scary.
  
• Eucalyptus trees, palm trees, and cacti - in some places, all mixed together.
  
• A surprising number of horses, in the "ranch country" between the beach and the desert. Also some cows and one batch of sheep.
  
• Various citrus trees, including huge orange groves in "ranch country."
  
• Some kind of tree that had lumps growing out of it. They looked exactly like green lemons but they were not.
  
• One date palm, producing dates.