Happy birthday, Mr. John Cleese!!!

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Meetin’ some mammals… the final chapter… the wildest mammals of all!

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Oh, don’t let the adorable smile and the big spit bubble behind it fool you. Of all the mammals you can meet, the wild human… especially the little ones… is by far the trickiest. They are wild, feral, and unpredictable.

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While it is true that they aren’t particularly fast, they startle easily, and can emit a a high-pitched vocalization that can overpower your senses. They also have the ability to produce noxious fumes and a wide array of horrendous bodily secretions.

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The smallest of them are not equipped for defensive biting… not that they won’t try to bite you anyway… but they can and will deliver a painful kick, and you should position yourself accordingly whenever approaching one.

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They are also watched over by very protective mothers, and you do not want to make the mother angry.

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Most of all, tiny humans are protected by a magical aura of adorableness… a cloud of cuteness, as it were, that distracts you, lulls you into a vulnerable state, and causes you to start babbling, act goofy, and make funny noises.

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The slightly older tiny humans are even more challenging to get close to. They are faster, stronger, and, as you can plainly see, are equipped with a formidable set of dental weaponry.

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Approach all small humans with care… you know, unless you are like me, and all small humans love you right off the bat.

*No small… or large… humans were injured during the making of this post*

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What? We are almost at the end of the exciting stories and pictures of your latest adventure to the Bay Area? Tell me it ain’t so, cousin Arthur!

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Yes, little cousin Campbell, I am afraid that is absolutely true. Oh, I still have a few posts to do, but we are nearing the end of the journey. I sure had fun hanging out with you, little guy.

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And I will miss you too, cousin Clark. We had fun while your mom took your brother to that doctor appointment, didn’t we.

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And did you guys know that I left my mom’s house in the Bay Area so early… to avoid traffic… that I got here to Santa Cruz before the sun even came up, and drove into town, and out on the pier, just to take a silly picture of some sleepy seagulls?

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And I then found a place nearby to eat breakfast that is named after your cousin, my daughter, Mollie.

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And I took a picture of the sun rising over the Santa Cruz mountains before I came over to your house.

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But I think, of all the stuff I did on my latest adventure, that hanging out with you dudes was the most fun.

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Yes, Clark, I liked it when you played that plastic straw like a flute.

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No, don’t be sad, little guy.

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I will be back before you know it, and I think we are going to see all of you at Christmas at my mom’s house.

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We interrupt these pictures of sunsets to bring you… uh… pictures of a sunrise…

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I am just, in my own clever way, reminding you that, on the way back South from my recent adventures in the Bay Area, I did get up at 3:30 in the morning, just to get you some pictures of the sun rising on the coastline of California.

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And I drove, in the dark and fog, on some crazy, narrow, twisty cliff-side road to do it, too.

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That is why this blog… and you… are so good for me… or, rather, why we are so good together.

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When I am feeling lazy, I can get myself going, and driving, and parking, and getting in and out of the car over and over again, because I love sharing these photos of my life with you.

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I get the joy of doing something fun and exciting, and you get to look at some pretty pictures.

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I call that a win/win situation.

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I mean, yeah, if you ever get the chance, you should drive central California’s coastal route Highway One, between Monterey and Morro Bay.

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But until you do, I will do it for you.

 

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Geeze, Arthur, enough with the pictures of the sunset, for cryin’ out loud…

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I know, I took a lot of photos that night I went up into the Berkeley hills to watch the sun set over San Francisco.

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The thing is… hey, thing, how’s it going?… that digital cameras let you take a lot of pictures. I do delete all the pictures that don’t live up to my standards. I only share the best with you. But that night was magical, and most of the pictures are too good to waste.

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As a matter of fact, on my latest adventure I did take a lot of photos that I almost deleted. They all had something wrong with them. But, instead of getting rid of them, I am saving them for a post about things that go wrong when you are taking pictures. It is going to be hilarious.

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So just bear with me. Try to suffer through these photos of one of the most beautiful places on earth on a night that was absolutely spectacular.

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And just so you know, there will only be one more post of pictures from this one night.

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And I did try to save the best ones for that.

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And that last photo right up there, that was taken from my mom’s deck, on a different night. I threw it in just to see if you were paying attention. HA!

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Meetin’ some mammals… part 10… Horsing around…

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Horses are not always easy to meet in an ‘up close and personal’ sense. I mean, yeah, you can go to someplace where you can pay to meet horses, but I am talking about you average horse who isn’t  conditioned to meeting new humans over and over. Horses have real personalities. They have to decide they like you before they will walk over to the fence and let you pet them.

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I was driving down the California coastal Highway One, after leaving Santa Cruz at four in the morning so I could get pictures of the sunrise from the cliffs for you, and I was looking out for other things to take pictures of that you might like. I spotted this little church.

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While I was taking pictures of the church, I spotted some horses. I don’t know about you, but I try to meet every horse I have a chance to meet. I love horses.

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For those of you who care, the small church, a winery and dock, and the horse ranch, are all part of land once owned by newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst. That is Hearst Castle way up there on the hill. I have been there. You should see it.

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Anyway, the four horses were all busy eating.

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And, as proved by the first photo, I still got two out of four of them to come over and say hello to me. If a horse leaves his breakfast to say hello, even though you don’t have an apple or some carrots to tempt them to the fence, you are a ‘horse person’.

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I love being a horse person. And a dog person. And a cat person. And a baby person.

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And I love that crazy zoom lens.

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Now get out there and meet some mammals!

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Meetin’ some mammals… part 9… (Or): Pet my head… pet my head… pet my head… pet my head…

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Pet my head… pet my head… pet my head…

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Pet my head… pet my head… pet my head…

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Oh wait… snacks…

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Pet my head… pet my head… pet my head…

I am sure that none of you need any advice on meeting the canine variety of mammal. So I will just say that I have never met a Bernese Mountain Dog that wasn’t sweet and smart and full of love. Also, they don’t drool nearly as much as Saint Bernards do.

And now, one more random photo of some dogs.

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Dem bones…

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Meetin’ some mammals… part 8… Even more good advice on the art of mammal meeting!

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While it is true that dogs are among the easier mammals to meet, you still need to exercise caution. You could get bit… or just really wet. (Seriously though, dog bites are the most common form of injury to young children… somebody Google that, I might be mistaken)…

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I am proud of those two photos. I crouched down and got just the right angle so the sun would catch the flying drops. And I used the zoom lens, so I wasn’t actually in the spray.

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Hey… how did that picture of an otter get in this post?

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Wait… never mind…

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I forgot I wasn’t doing these in order, so that I could put the best picture at the top… ***Blogging Tip*** If you put the best picture in a post at the top, that is the one that shows up in the reader topic pages, where your posts go in wordpress when you tag them as ‘humor’ or ‘photography’ or ‘free porn’ or whatever. A good picture will increase the likelihood that someone will come and visit your dog… uh… I mean blog…

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But I do like a big finish too…

 

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Meetin’ some mammals… part 7…(Or): You otter behave yourself…

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Yes, yet again I stopped, on my way down the California coast, after my adventures in the Bay Area and a brief stop to help out with my cousin’s kids in Santa Cruz, in Morro Bay, to see the sea otters.

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You should try to see some sea otters. They are another mammal that is hard to get close to… because that water is cold.

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Because I got up so early… in order to take some pictures of the sunrise for you… the moon was still up.

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I think that is called a ‘raft’ of otters… but feel free to Google that. I could be wrong.

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The zoom lens is so cool. I love the moon picture, and there are some pelicans and seagulls, just hanging out across the bay.

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I highly suggest a visit to Morro Bay.

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I stopped along Highway One to take these pictures. Morro Bay has that huge rock and the factory with the giant smoke stacks. And it is famous as a bird-watching site.

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But it is a lovely little town, and you can see sea otters.

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