Back From California... On To Ballard

We returned from California on Wednesday night (reluctantly).  The trip, while crazily busy visiting Paul's not so small family, was great!  Laguna Beach was very cool.  People were nice.  The hotel was perfectly situated with the beach right there.  I must say that I am a sucker for a beach.  Every morning I had to go down and see what was happening on the beach before we headed out to family functions.  And every morning the dolphins were out to greet me.  It was wonderful!  (Now the "brilliant idea" is to put Guatemala on hold and move to Southern California...  I'm not arguing with the new plan.)
I did not manage to get a lot of photos due to the fact that we spent the bulk of our time visiting Paul's family and the other fact that the times when I was free to sight-see it was foggy (usually mornings and late evenings).

This one was from under the pier at Huntington Beach.  The beach is a long, expansive place.  There were lots of people playing frisbee and volleyball on the beach and tons of surfers in the water but since the beach is so huge it was uncrowded.

And the other thing I was particularly interested in (because I love things like this):  UNEXPLAINED ROOFTOP ANIMALS

in Laguna Beach.

They're right on the Coast Highway, perched on top of a roof that appears to be part of little shopping arcade (or on a building between the arcade and the street behind?).  I couldn't find any information about why they are there.

(Here's how they looked from the roof of our hotel.)

And here's a cloudy view from the roof of the hotel.  It was beautiful when the clouds burned off but it became so crowded up there later in the day that I found it difficult (being vertically challenged and therefore unable to get above the crowd) to get a shot at the view when it was clear.

So now I am off to Ballard.  Catherine is coming down to collect me this afternoon (haven't seen her for months!).  I'll take the camera and try to document the holiday excursion for posterity (I'm really trying to carry the camera everywhere to get in the habit of taking photos).