The other thing I woke up thinking about, besides my tender face, was my visit to Wilder Ranch yesterday. I've lived in Santa Cruz for two years almost now, and I'd never been. It's just up the road a couple of miles, and it's beautiful!

Sean came over yesterday and we had a near perfect day. It started with breakfast, which as many of you know, is my favorite meal. I could eat breakfast any time. Mmmm... toast! Anyway, I made us up some scrambled eggs with basil and goat cheese and diced tomato, and some sourdough toast, and it was soooo yummy. I love basil in eggs. Plus, I had a cup of the St. Dalfour's organic English Breakfast tea, which is maybe my favorite English Breakfast tea, and I had it with a splash of organic heavy whipping cream, so it was all rich and delicious.

And then I gave Sean a shoulder rub, after which he fell asleep (I guess the massage must have been okay) on the couch while I was implementing my pre-departure-from-house routine. Various eyedrops, choosing flattering clothes (I think I may have mentioned a while back that I am no longer wearing unflattering clothes outside my home, and usually not even then unless I'm sick or otherwise in bed) for our hike (I was aiming for "hiking cute"), making sure I had a hat and sunglasses and a water bottle, etc. And then it took me FOREVER to wake Sean up sufficiently to get his butt out of the house and into the car. Sadly, we didn't get to put the top down on his car, because of my eyes and not wanting to have a bunch of crap blowing into them.

Of course, as it turned out, we could have had the top down and it still would have been less windy than Wilder Ranch. It was amazingly beautiful there, out on the headlands, with so many of the flowering coastal plants in bloom right now, and the sky a clear blue with only a few puffy cottonball clouds, and the water that gorgeous Pacific aqua-blue it gets. But it was WINDY! Luckily, I had a tight-fitting hat and the sunglasses I'd brought were my bigger, more close-fitting-to-my-face pair. And also, Sean had encouraged me to bring my warmer sweatershirt rather than the lighter one, despite the lighter one being cuter. I was glad, when we came around to the ocean side, to have the warmer layer. It was so windy that it was hard work to walk in it. And when I stood on my heels and lifted my toes, it actually pushed me back. Naturally, I did not try this trick with any cliffs behind me.

The only thing that made it possible to not be completely paranoid about my eyes was that, although it was windy, it was not dusty. I did have to stop once to flush out my left eye with one of the kajillion eyedrop vials I'd brought with me, but it was just as we were entering the Super Wind Zone, so we were able to turn back to a slightly quieter location for the actual removal-of-sunglasses-insertion-of-drops portion of the afternoon.

It really is beautiful there, and I'm looking forward to going again sometime when I'm not quite so worried about my eyes, and when it's maybe a tiny bit less windy. It's outside the bay, so apparently it will always be windier than in Santa Cruz central, but it won't always be as bad it was yesterday.

After Wilder Ranch, we drove up the coast and had lunch in Davenport (the cafe is closed until summer for remodeling, so we ate at the bakery which was okay, but I think not as good as the cafe), and then we came back to my house and collapsed on the couch and watched an episode of House. Hugh Laurie is so great!

As I said before, a near perfect day.