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This is a view from the seacliff at Pescadero Beach. We tried to get into the parking lot at San Gregorio Beach, but it was full. I guess that's how the state regulates how many people can go to the beach. If you can't get into the parking lot and you can't park on the highway, you can't go to the beach. This area is covered in wildflowers and iceplant. I almost stepped on a lizard and screamed my fool head off.

I believe these are California sea lions. It's easy to mix up seals and sea lions, but I'm thinking seals have fur and these do not, so these must be sea lions. I used a 500 zoom lens to capture these lazy critters.

Here I am in front of the Montara Lighthouse.

This is now a youth hostel, however, it is not inexpensive to stay in a room with a bunch of other drunken college kids. This entire area seems to be very expensive. It cost about four figures for a 2-night stay in our hotel, which didn't even have an in-room bar nor did room service deliver a newspaper to our door.

This is a woman getting married to two teenagers at the same time. Or maybe it's the one on her right, hard to tell. After we snapped photos of them, they turned around and took photos of us. Pillar Point Harbor is a wedding destination.

I shot this from the car as we drove past Crystal Springs Reservoir. I tried to shoot the San Mateo Bridge but it was simply too overcast and foggy to get a good photo.

You know you're coming back into the Central Valley of California when everything is brown. My sister from Minnesota asked me, "Don't they water?" I guess she thinks that California should water its entire countryside.

It's great to be back in Sacramento. I missed the warmth. It's really cold in Half Moon Bay this time of year. I had to buy a fleece pullover. They say that their summer is really September / October. It would be worth coming back for the Half Moon Bay Art & Pumpkin Festival.

Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub

Montara Lighthouse: Adam Weintraub

I spotted the envelope one day when I was six. It was addressed to my brother with an important government return address. It stated - "Registered Alien" next to his name.  Oh the shame, the horror. I knew he was weird, dangerously smug, but this!  He must be a handsome "Grey" I surmised.  But wait a minute; weren't aliens highly intelligent, possessing amazing powers? I ventured a guess that he was suffering from a truly universal malady, one that struck countless humans as well. Evidently, like many others, he was short on talent, long on looks. Though lately, I could hardly understand him as he and our mother were always speaking Latin together.  Something about getting him into the right university, but now I seriously doubted that was the case. Later that evening I questioned my mother about this as tactfully as I could.  She distastefully recoiled and stated in French "We are all registered aliens, except you. What about it?" I stopped in my tracks, I was surrounded.

I should have known something was up with them. The food - always a dead giveaway - snails, frog legs, anchovy fillets criss-crossing everything, often with olives punctuating the negative space; prompting a neighbor to always comment, "oh, it  looks like a board game" which in turn prompted my mother to later mutter "culinary barbarians..." There was also all that runny cheese that could hardly be contained in the plastic wrap, oval and flat rounds tins with keys and strange writing on them filled the cupboards, no neon bright ketchup or mustard ever to be found. And that music they always listened to - opera, never in English or anything clearly understandable.... I had been blind and yet the only one not afflicted.  No wonder when my parents came home, my friends took off so quickly. I used to think it strange when asked if they wanted to stay for dinner, they were visibly shaken.

This latest intelligence sent me on a "search and compare" mission canvassing my neighborhood.  What was really going on in everyone else's home?  Sadly, no one else was fooled.  Every time it rained, the snails would sail out onto the sidewalks. Inevitably, the phone would ring. The neighborhood boys would call and say - "Tell your mother - dinner's on the sidewalk!" For some reason this never bothered me, I thought it rather clever. But I never dared tell my mother this timely news for fear of her going out in the rain and catching them. At this point, I felt she would eat anything that moved.

But really, how had I let myself be duped like this.  Now, it all made sense as to why most of my parent's friends and associates were just like them - certainly aliens as well. And most of them had that insidious "Eiffel Tower" monument, or " Leaning Tower of Pisa"  somewhere in their homes.  Obviously a miniature version of a communication tower, similar to the one Felix and the Professor had...All this made me far more interested in the other houses and buildings around me. I knew what was going on in my newly deemed freakish household.  But what did people who were not connected to such beings do, really?  I had to venture out beyond my circle of friends at this point.

My home, from the outside looked normal.  Once you entered, well, that was a different story. We had modern yet slightly rustic Italian furniture, some of it was sculptural looking made with straight almost Giacometti looking hand wrought iron supports that reminded me of bird legs, cork floors, not as nice as the cork now, and paintings that I didn't really understand. There was brick and wood and white walls everywhere. Just red, black and white it seemed. My mother loved it. The rest of us just endured it. Actually, I hated it. I used to color with crayons, as that was the only medium that stuck, alternating bands of expressive colors in the rusticated grout lines of the brick that surrounded the fireplace as well as an entire wall whenever I could. My ongoing, yet constantly interrupted goal was to finish the entire wall before I was caught. Then my color rationed family could see how truly lovely it would be. I thought it looked beautiful, similar to a Mondrian. Believe me I always paid the price, but I yearned for some extra color and that was all there was in my arsenal. My patient father cleaned it repeatedly and always winked at me afterward.  He was a painter, he knew.  Even though he was one of them...

For my mission, I began to focus on the Spanish Colonial houses and buildings in my neighborhood. They had huge windows and courtyards and foliage allowing me to do my reconnaissance. Everyday, after school, I would leave my friends and go off on my own and peer into various windows in Hollywood, CA. of all places. I chose my streets carefully but was not afraid of anything, why should I be? I lived among aliens.

Our house was modest in comparison to these grand structures. Could mere humans live in these? It was a stroke of surreptitious timing that in one of these beautifully ornate facades, I peered through the mullioned window and saw that "The Munsters" was on.  I, of course always noticed that Marilyn looked so normal and was surrounded by....why I never thought of this before.  Marilyn was just like me, or I was just like Marilyn. And the nerve, those Munters thought she was odd, less than... I had to sit down and peer over the carved stone of the window surround and really observe how she behaved among all this madness. I could not really hear the soundtrack, so I focused intently on the expressions, the gestures, all the unspoken courtesies. She seemed so comfortable, so gracious, so kind and giving. Affectionate even. What was her problem?  She was like I used to be, downright oblivious.

During the walk home I kept telling myself, if Marilyn can do it, so can I. Besides, she looked great next to them.  I could use a boost with regards to my slipping authority being the lone minority and all. This new approach, possibly showcasing my attractive normalacy, made me quite happy as during my astute observations just moments ago, it led me to believe that my mother and brother, especially, were so full of themselves, just like Lily Munster.  So for awhile, I abandoned peering into Spanish Colonial windows and hurried home instead to study at "The School Of Marilyn" otherwise known as "The Munsters" on dealing with, well, you know....the differences within families.

Michelle Viggiano  Scottsdale & Phoenix Four Winds Healthy Home Carpet and Air Duct Cleaning www.healthyhomeaz.com