Run, it's the Grunion! Wait...

I mean, run to the grunion run!

This weekend we went down and camped at Doheney State beach (much thanks to moms and pops who footed the bill for the camp ground, RV, etc.). The State beach there offers quite a few things to do: great restaurants (not that we took advantage of them, although we did eat at a great taco place called Chronic Tacos), the little marine museum, the marina, tide pools, and the ocean institute. Other than stuff our craws, the main event was experiencing the phenomenon (singular...phenomena is plural...so hard to remember for me!) that is the grunion run. We didn't even plan on seeing it, but happened to arrive at just the right time (end of a full moon, tides, etc.)

Before reading on, you can get the "offical" story on the grunion HERE.

Basically thousands upon thousands of these little fish called grunion allow themselves to be washed ashore at which point they mate. It's really amazing to watch these little, semi-luminous fish wiggle and waggle on the shore as dozens of people, us included, watched with our flashlights in awe. Wes and I even stood out in the shallow water with our shoes off and could feel them wiggling around our ankles and feet (at the time I didn't really think too much about what was really going on around my feet). Too bad we didn't get any photos, but here's an example of what it looked like from photos I found on the web:

By the way, I found these images at a very interesting website about "things you should do in California."