Do you remember (or care?) that I went to Texas last year? (Here is a link to the opening chapter.)

My Texas friends are in Gilroy, California (yeppers, the garlic capital of the state or maybe the country or even the world), and since that is only 3-1/2 hours from me, I went to see them.

To get there, I went over Pacheco Pass, the same way I went to Monterey last fall. However, while last year I blew past the beautiful hills, this year there was road construction, which provided opportunities to take some photos. These are awful photographically, but very paintable. That’s why artists say they are using “reference photos”. Well, that, and because of the snobbery against painting from photos as opposed to creating the scene oneself or painting plein air. But that’s another topic for another day.

Mrs. Texas provided a list of places to go and things to see and do while there; all I cared about was being with her and going to the beach. (Big surprise, eh?) So, we hung out, played a fun simple game called Shut The Box and a more complicated one called Assassin Code Names while catching up and laughing, went thrift shopping (the thrill of the hunt overcomes my aversion to accumulating possessions), and of course, went to Trader Joe’s.

There were a few walks, because they are on the edge of town, surrounded by agriculture and golden hills. It is so beautiful there, not hot compared to the Central Valley. But it is a very desirable place to live for folks who work in the Silicon Valley, so traffic can be a problem.

Rio Del Mar was Mrs. Texas’s beach of choice, based on many years of living in Gilroy. 

Like many California beaches, it was foggy in the a.m.

 “Rio” is Español for river, and sure enough, a river flows into the ocean right there in Aptos. “Rio del Mar” means “river of the sea”. 

We found some interesting items: a fisherman caught this skate, and there were a few jellyfish, including this weird little rectangular one with a blue border. 

Mrs. Texas gathers little shells and pieces of driftwood to make mobiles with, one of which hangs outside my kitchen window in Three Rivers. 

Rio Del Mar Beach has a “shipwreck”, which is the SS Palo Alto, an oil tanker built of cement when steel supplies were low during WWI, not needed after all so converted to an amusement ship and parked by the pier in Aptos in 1929, and currently just serving as a bird place and a diving destination since the pier went bye-bye in 2023. You can read about it here.

What are Mr. and Mrs. Texas looking at??

WEIRD!!

A buried bird, with a blue foot and one blue toe sticking out of the sand. Mr. Texas offered to exhume it, but we more delicate women declined the offer. (We may have even squealed a little while running away.)

This is too long. See you tomorrow for Chapter Two!