Today was quite an adventure. My friend Christie and I headed to the refineries today to walk around March Point a bit. We parked the car and headed out, and shortly were stopped by a security person who questioned us about our car--it seems we were parked within 300 feet of the trestle that goes out to the ships that come in, and that's forbidden now that we are in a terrorist age in our country. Before 9/11 people could come out to the March Point area and camp all along the road next to the beaches--not any more--camping is forbidden, as is parking too close to anything that has to do with the refinery. We apologized and went on with our walk. When we got back near the car, there was a heron in the water, so we stopped to take pictures, and then headed under the trestle towards where the company campground is. We could see an eagle sitting in a tree and knew there was a nest somewhere. On the way, I snapped a couple of pictures of the trestle; I thought it had a lot of interesting lines in it. The next thing we knew, back came security. He wanted to know what kind of bird we were taking pictures of, told us we couldn't take any pictures of any refinery structures, and told us to delete the pictures on our cameras. Ha! Seriously? Do I look like a terrorist? Am I going to publish my pictures? Not any that have to do with refinery structures--so you won't see the trestle shots--but the birds are okay. It certainly made us aware that we had been filmed the whole time we were on our walk. Glad I didn't take a picture of one of the gigantic tanks like I was going to. Made for an interesting walk though. I'm pretty sure that if I had given him my name, I'd now be on some sort of watch list. Let's see what happens when I have to fly to Wisconsin later this month.
Other than the law breaking we did, it was a pretty amazing day. Christie commented on how lucky we are that we live in a place where one day we are walking along a river in the mountains and the next day along the shore of the ocean. Today we saw some Black Oystercatchers in the bay. Their beaks are bright orange and very long--they use them to dig up mussels and other clams. They are really not common in the area, so it was pretty neat to see them.
On the way home we drove through an area where the herons are nesting. At one point we saw at least 15 herons flying and/or sitting in the trees. They just kept flying from the bay to the trees and back to the bay again. It was quite a sight. All in all, quite an adventurous day! Here's our route of 2.57 miles: http://www.trimbleoutdoors.com/ViewTrip/716060
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