A morning in paradise

Just 14 minutes from our house this morning, we had banana pancakes on the patio at the Seaside Café, then walked our dog Cheyenne down to the cliffs overlooking the ocean. The tide was pretty high, so there wasn’t much beach to walk on once we climbed down the stairs. But the sky was blue, the air temperature was about 74, kayakers were aplenty, and we could see the heads of seals popping out of the water all around us.

“Your dog scares me,” said a woman, interrupting my meditation on the surf. “Could you please watch her more closely?”

Cheyenne, our boxer-shepherd mix who weighs an adorable 85 pounds, was sitting quietly at my side, on leash, sniffing the salty breeze and minding her own business, about 25 feet from the woman.

“We’ll do our best,” we promised her. Even she couldn’t ruin this beautiful morning.

November on California’s central coast. Nothin’ could be finer.