You can call me Big Sur

I'm kicking back with my daddy this morning, chowing down some rice and some apple juice, after a good night's sleep in a river-side cabin where I listened to the rain fall through the trees and softly on our cabin's roof all night. I needed some sleep after all the hard work I did yesterday working on my consonants, especially my Ns and my Ds. While we drove from San Francisco to Big Sur, I did my vocal exercise work: Na-Na-Na-Na-Na-Na-Na-Naaaaaaa! Da-Da-Da-Da-Da-Da-Daaaaaaa! I also experimented with the effects of the sometimes bumpy terrain of the Pacific Coast Highway on my vocal chords, letting out long moans and listening to the road make them jump. I made excellent progress in my work and look forward to today's drive, when I'm considering working on my Drah-Drah-Drahs.

Yesterday morning we went out for breakfast where I enjoyed some excellent toast; I find that if one sucks the toast as though through a straw at the bottom of an empty glass, loudly and with much slurping, one can extract a significant amount of melted butter from said piece of toast. There was a man at the table behind me who obviously wanted to talk to someone, so I turned around in my chair as much as I could to listen to him. I don't know if he recognized my efforts, but I hope he appreciated my participation.

After breakfast we went to the giant baby store in Emeryville to get me a carrier as well as a book to help me learn the names of my body parts, and then we headed down to the Monterey Peninsula. We stopped in Carmel-by-the-Sea, which was packed with dressed up tourists, and got out on the beach for a bit. I saw a squirrel - right in front of me! - and some dogs and some birds and some big waves and some grass across the way which my parents tell me is the Pebble Beach golf course. When we got back in the car, we drove around town and looked at the tiny cabins packed in on top of each other and my parents laughed trying to imagine which one Clint Eastwood lives in. Then it was about time for my dinner, and it didn't seem to be the sort of town where a good smattering of cookie crumbs on the floor or an enthusiastic yelp about one's dinner would be appreciated, so we headed on down the road to Big Sur.

The stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway south of Carmel is apparently the most beautiful and dramatic stretch of the highway and also the most dangerous. Daddy loved it but Mommy found the terror of the cliff's edge made it hard to appreciate the beauty, so she was glad when Daddy agreed to stop here at the Ripplewood Resort and get a cabin for the night. We relaxed at the Big Sur Roadhouse across the road after a short hike by the river before calling it a night.

I'm digging cabin life but we're packing up to get an early start so we don't have to rush down the slightly treacherous road to San Simeon, where we have tickets for a tour of the Hearst Castle this afternoon. I have to go now because my parents absolutely cannot find the reserve of wipes, and we used the last known wipe last night, so I have to get directly in the shower with Daddy before a bad situation in my pants gets worse, if you know what I mean. And I think you do.