Author: Alison Schmidt (Sacramento, California, USA)
Website: Click here
Photo location: San Francisco, USA
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Categories: [awe]  [fun]  [nature]  

Although I suppose I am technically a tourist when I go to San Francisco, I never feel that way. I have always had friends and family there, I grew up less than three hours away, and I go there about once a month. And though I must admit that I’ve been to Alcatraz, I am really not interested in the very obvious tourist attraraions. When I go to visit, I insist that I get to see beautiful things—things that a local would consider beautiful. The last time I went my best friend and I went to Fisherman’s Wharf on the Embarcadero, which I hadn’t done since I was a kid.

Those sea lions! I looked at them with the same amazement that I had when I was ten years old. What on earth are they doing there? The smell just about knocked me out, but the sea lions captured me like blubbery sirens. They would bark and bark and bark and bark. Although there were plenty of rafts that had nice open spaces, they all seemed to fight for an occupied space. Jill and I found our favorite and named him Rex, after an old friend. We stood on the pier watching those crazy flippered dogs for over an hour while they barked their tiny-eared heads off.

I wasn’t surprised that the sea lions enraptured me for as long as they did because I dig critters—especially any critter that resembles a dog—but I was a bit shocked at the role-playing I was doing with Jill. It was as if we were playing Barbies again. Each sea lion had their own personality and their own (very definite) voice, so we supplied the plot. Rex was the Godfather. The wind was whipping around us, and we finally left when we were too frozen to continue. But while we were involved with a sea lion soap opera, the world had happened all around us; tour boats came and went, helicopters flew overhead and cars came in droves over both bridges into the city. Jill, the sea lions and I just played.

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