Let's go fly a Kite!!















Natural Bridge State Beach, Santa Cruz.

I like Holidays. who doesn't? When I was in Senegal it seemed there were holidays every other week because they would celebrate ALL the holidays: muslim AND christian holidays, plus other national holidays... not a bad idea. In California, we get a special day to celebrate the life of Cesar Chavez, legendary Mexican American farm worker in California who fought for the health and civil liberties of farmers in California, leading a strike with a huge march of grape-pickers from Delano to the capital (around 245 miles!, I just learned) that lasted for 5 years and encouraged people to boycott table grapes. To be honest, I hadn't even heard of Cesar Chavez growing up in Utah. I learned about him a few years ago when I worked for a Cesar Chavez grant one of my professors got to teach kids about him and about environmental conservation, organic farming/gardening, and community building in Willow Creek and the Hupa reservation (about 45 miles East of Arcata). What an amazing man. Thank you Cesar Chavez!

So to celebrate Mr. Chavez and our day off, Glenn and I took off to find a sunny beach- hello Santa Cruz! We were going to go to Stintson beach, which is supposed to be
the closest relatively non-crowded, un-polluted , and super beautiful beach...but after finding out that the next closest beaches (in Santa Cruz) were 70 degrees and sunny rather than 60 and foggy, Santa Cruz won! What can I say, I'm a dessert girl, I thrive on sunshine!


One thing I can say is that Glenn and I are good at playing: we spent the day running on rocks, Ukulele playing, tide pooling, playing tag, and kite flying!- we finally got my kite (purchased last summer and earth-bound even atop Utah's tallest mountain) to soar! It wasn't easy, our little kerby kamakazi kite kept spinning and diving all over the place, but we did it for a few couple minute long sessions with success, and Glenn's persistance:) Kite flying reminds me of camping at Moab in Southern Utah - we used to go every year with my family, cousins, and aunts and uncles over Easter and camp by the green river, have Easter Egg hunts in the sand, hike in nearby Arches National Park, play April Fool's jokes, and play capture the flag at night..I hear some of my cousins are keeping up the tradition and going down this year- way to keep the tradition alive! Unfortunately I won't be going :(, but Glenn and I might go to Big Sur, which is almost as nice:)

Big Bend Campsite, Moab, Utah

So back to Santa Cruz, the day was topped off with the appearance of a blue alpaca who came to enjoy a wade in the ocean! Yes blue, like dyed blue alpaca on a leash at the beach! How unusual?! maybe it's a frequent occurance there, but it was my first time seeing one. I feel privelaged.
I've always loved alpacas- their soft wool spun into velvety socks, hats and gloves and scarves, their gentle demeanor, their ability to mow your lawn by eating only the tops of the grass instead of the whole plant, plus they come in different colors apparently:P
I'd like to have a pet alpaca some day:)

Aren't they cute?

So I never thought anything could be softer than alpaca wool yarn until last night when we spent some time with our friend April, who just returned from a year in New Zealand, and brought home with her hundreds of pairs of posssom socks. That's right, possom fur is spun and mixed with wool and a little nylon to make the warmest, softest, most durable socks imaginable..or so April says. She convinced me...After trying them on and hearing the story of the possoms, I bought a pair and haven't taken them off sicne...I know you're thinking, how cruel, why would anyone want or even need a pair of socks made at the cost of the life of a small cute little bushtail possom(way cuter than the possoms here in US)?

Well I would've thought the same thing before I learned that possoms are the BIGGEST environmental problem in New Zealand! They were brought over from Australia (home to plenty of predators that will control the population such as dingos, tirantulas, alligators, ect) to New Zealand where the only mammal is a bat, hardly a predator for the feisty little possom. So the populations have mulitplied to uncontrollable numbers- 70 million! And they eat up to 140 TONS of the sweet lucious vegetation thriving in New Zealand's beautiful landscape...The government's way to deal with it is poison, which is just making another environmental problem contaminating ecosystems and killing other animals too. The alternative is to hunt them, and currently numerous hunters make money for killing as many as they can- they get 10 kiwi dollars ( about $7) for each possom they kill, then their fur is used to make soft, warm, durable socks. Apparently there are lots of hunters that make a good living doing this.

So now I've got super socks and I'm doing my little tiny part to help preserve New Zealand's pristine environment. I'll let you know how they stand a month of hiking on the PCT this summer...April has already used them for 6 months of hiking in New Zealand and they do not look worn at all. Yay for possom socks:) If any of you are interested in getting yourself some, contact my friend April Armstrong: aprilalison@hotmail.com