Yesterday I got the day off from work, so I went to the beach with A! We decided on El Matador State Beach in Malibu, farther out past Zuma, but the amount of exploring afforded by the extra miles made it so worth it. We went down the steps from cliff to shore and headed East (South? I never know, when I'm by the ocean...), and after scoping everything out for an hour, got hungry and set up our picnic lunch atop a big rock right along the water's edge. After lots of egg salad, pickles, chips and the like, we went straight back to exploring...
There was so much to see. A pointed to a runoff from the cliffs that had carried down all these rocks that, over years had gotten smooth and worn down by the pounding of the waves and against each other. I noticed many of the beach pebbles resembled the jasper and chalcedonies that I picked up out of the desert several weeks ago and was extremely excited to see them in a smoother, semi-polished form.
As well as interesting mineral specimens, A had his eye out for tiny, colorful, perfect seashells. Check out that gorgeous plum-colored and ridged cowrie! Oh, after some quick research I've learned it is not a true cowrie, but a trivia - Trivia californiana. I've never seen such a beautiful shell like that found on a California beach. Seems like I've been frequenting the wrong ones all my life! In addition to the obvious awesomeness of the mineral and molluscan findings, there was plenty of marine life to see - tide pools full of sea anemones, crabs, limpets, periwinkle snails, and farther out - mussels, sea stars, dolphins! We saw some sea lions while eating/walking around too, sadly looking a bit forlorn as if they were missing their mothers...
El Matador is known for its sea caves in addition to its large rock outcroppings, which we explored after lunch. There we stumbled upon ghostlier-colored sea anemones, timed our movements around the caves against the crashing waves, left our flip flops on a rock to triumphantly return to later, all while stooping and scooping and scrutinizing the lovely shells and rocks all over the beach. I did a half-assed job of documenting it all because right off the bat I just wanted to play and enjoy everything, and that won out over preserving the memories...!
Today I awoke and felt sore from yesterday's excursions, a tiny bit sandy and the teeniest bit salty. After several errands and lunch I sorted out my beach treasures, slightly less impressive now that they were dry and out of the ocean, but still breathtakingly gorgeous. I added some to a few of my potted plants, sort of like jewelry or visual candy for them, haha. The rest of the pebbles are now atop my dresser in a medium-sized glass apothecary jar - smooth, shiny, vibrant and now a hearty reminder that there's always more out there, possibly better variations of things that you thought you knew - which is a thrilling realization.
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