Welcome to Heart's Desire Beach.

Monkey says it is named this by the seagulls who get fed to their heart's desire, but shouldn't be. It's not good for them. It teaches them bad behaviors that leads many people to hate seagulls calling them mean names like 'sea rats' or 'air rats' or 'beach pigeons.'

Opice also says he did not break the kayak sign. "Some dumb seagull did it."

On the way into the park, the young ranger spotted Monkey and worried. "If we don't allow dogs, why allow Opice?" So the ranger asked, "Why are you picking on this park today?"

"Because I came to see the nudibranchs."

"What nudibranchs?" asked the ranger.

"The ones I came to see, today, duh?"

"I don't think we have nudibranchs."

"Yes you do and I'll prove it to me." (Opice hates it when people know more about things than he does.)

After not finding Monkey any sea-slugs at Hearts Desire, we hike over the hill to Indian Beach to visit the Coast Miwok village. Opice spots the bark houses (called u'macha) and the ramada beyond.

"I saw them first!" he claims them.

Opice runs over to an u'macha and shouts, "Look at me! Take my roll-over picture!"

He means I'm supposed to take an inter-active foto of him. He does this to me all the time. You wanna know why? Because it takes 2 pix to make 1 roll-over and if there's one thing Monkey likes better than having his picture taken, it's having his picture taken twice.

"Or three times," he adds. "Besides, you owe me after this whole nudibranch fiasco you caused."

Monkey tests out the ramada shade structure. The log is the perfect size for him, except...

As usual, he's stumped. Do you see his mistake? (Hint, he could move the ramada, or...)

It's time to start home. As we drive out of the park Monkey says, "Don't let him see me."

Who?

"The park ranger."

Why?

"He'll laugh at me for not finding nudibranchs."

No he won't. Just because we didn't see any today doesn't mean they don't live here.

"You mean like Czechs?" he teases. "We're everywhere, but we don't advertise it.
We like to keep a low profile, blend in. I'm very unobtrusive, ask anyone."

One last thing, Vladimir's was not the end of this adventure. Monkey confesses he's seismophobic. That means he's afraid of earthquakes. That means the adventure won't be over for many miles yet--not until we're back in seismically dull old Sacramento. (No one will ever be able to accuse Opice of being a stick in the liquefaction mud.)

Inverness and Tomales Bay State Park are on the Pacific Tectonic Plate. Opice lives (and clings to) the North American Plate. The closer he is to where they meet, the nervouser he gets. Tomales Bay was created by the San Andreas Fault slipping under it. When the 1906 San Francisco Quake happened, Point Reyes moved 20 feet northwest! BANG!

Now Monkey is a HUGE believer in travel. "It broadens the mind and provides opportunities to commingle with different genes*," he always says. "But when I say travel, I mean jet. None of this tectonic subduction stuff. Plate surfing is not my thing unless it's family style and we all share what we ordered at Little Prague."

Therefore Opice was happy to join the rush-hour traffic on I-80 heading back into the Central Valley and away from the fault zone. He said, "Phobias may not be rational, but neither is living atop the New Madrid, the Hayward, the Northridge or any other active fault or volcano." [Yes, he's also pyroclastic flow fearful.]

*genes: Monkey asked where his ancestors came from. His parental unit told him, "Whatever army passed thru the village that year." [OMG, he might not be completely Plush Czech!]