Low tide this visit was 6am and 6pm. The town and beach were teeming with touronistas, so I headed out on the fatty catty to the Morua Estuary, to see sights that between the tides and seasons are usually underwater.

The sandbar was currently forming a relatively deep tide pool, with a steep slope on its edge. Made for a nice off-camber challenge. Next morning I rallied the family to hike ~20 minutes from the end of the road out to it for a swim. You could jump off the slope in the background and land in 4 feet of water – not a feature you normally get ’round c’here.

The sandbar at the mouth of the estuary has a cool reef at the end of it, that my kids call Bird Island. We last went here 2 years ago in winter. We hiked about 30 min there at sunset the next day.

I don’t understand why 200 pelicans don’t just turn and eat one little girl? The dune in the background is about 100 feet tall, and has a few ribbons of gravel that run through it, such that you can ride much of the way from the beach to the top, and then whoop back down.

It was not all so simple.
We’ve had these cats, who we’ve been feeding for awhile.
and we could not say no to another cat, or 2

Mittens and Cookies spent 4 days nosing their way in, fleeing, coming back, and regretting it, and making us feel awkward and ugly and unwantable. They decided they did not want to be house cats. Yet flush with estrogen and a weekend of no-adoption fees throughout most of Maricopa County, we succumbed.

Welcome Crumb!