Dos Panchos

Spent the afternoon with a group of Stegner Fellows from Stanford, as evidenced by this candid shot which Brittany Perham snapped at the Año Nuevo State Park's Visitors Center, and which was emailed to me by Peter Kline.

On our way to see the elephant seals give birth to their young and to vie for each other's affections, Matthew Siegel and I were sporting nifty plasticware, courtesy of Dina Hardy, our documentary filmmaker, (whose "Survival of the Fittest" is getting all kinds of play on YouTube.) Keetje Kuipers, in the upper right-hand corner, was much more stylishly outfitted. Her equally lovely book, Beautiful in the Mouth, came out just that day from BOA Editions. So there was much cause for celebration.

The weather was horrible. Wind, rain, hailstones. So I guess it was unsurprising that our docent was a bit less talkative than is often the case. He did, however, frequently point out the large number of recently weaned pups, which in sealbiz are called "weaners." We saw a hell of a lot of weaners.

Odd segue: congratulations to Greg Wrenn, who just found out he's been chosen as one of Stanford's Wallace Stegner Fellows! This time next year, we're hoping to take him with us to see a new generation of elephant seals. Weaners and all...