Water and rocks. Okay, water, rocks, and birds. And seals.

The genius of digital cameras is that you can take a zillion pictures and see what you came up with, with no penalty in terms of developing, etc. However, in practice, what this means is that you come home with 500 pictures of interesting rock formations, glorious pictures of the water rolling in, the grandeur of partial shots of birds, and more glorious water.

As I've been sorting through my pictures from our recent trip to the coast, I also realize that I love these pictures, even in their sameness; but I probably don't need to inflict them on the internet. My oldest dear friend has a flickr account that she maintains scrupulously, like a gallery run by someone with exquisite taste. My flickr account, on the other hand, I keep just like I keep everything else in my house--a little chaotically, with many versions of almost the same thing, and everything crowded in with everything else, so you can hardly see what's there. Also, despite my love for the idiosyncratic tag, I have failed to tag my photos, with the result that . . . well, you can predict the results. Let's put it this way: there's a lot of ocean in my flickr.

Never mind. Since there are at least ten shots of amazing rock formations at Point Lobos, and since I cannot bring myself not to keep them all, let me show you at least a little of what we saw in this magnificent part of the California coast:

At Carmel beach.

Pelicans at Point Lobos.

Awesome stone formations! (you just let me know if you need to see more.)

Blue-headed bird at Big Sur.

At Nepenthe, in the late afternoon.

Seaweed on the beach. (lustrous and enigmatic, right?)

This bird seriously dive-bombed me, smacked me in the face, and stole my french fry, practically from my lips.