Sadie, Katie, and their new friend at Point Vicente

Last week, my friend and her husband from Minnesota spent a week vacationing in southern California. When she sent me a message a few months ago to say that she'd be in town, one thing that she wanted to do was make sure she got to meet Sadie and Katie. Of course, there was no way that she wasn't going to meet them.

After going on a three-hour late morning whalewatch cruise out of Redondo Beach (where we spotted six fin and two gray whales, and a few common dolphin), we drove to Point Vicente to walk along the Palos Verdes loop trail. Starting from the Interpretive Center, we walked north on the trail, pausing several times to look out at the ocean that was just on the other side of the metal railing that skirted the edge of the cliffs. We spent a lot of the time chatting.

After awhile Aimee and I decided to turn around and walk back to the Center, and again we paused a few times along the way to look at the ocean. By this time I decided I had better try my luck and get a few shots of Aimee with Sadie and Katie. Although we stopped once to take a few photos as she knelt behind them -- Sadie rested her head on Katie's back as she often does -- I wanted to get a few shots of them walking together. This might be the best of those:

I used my little SB-400 flash for fill even though it was mid-afternoon, and the sun was falling behind high cirrus clouds that were approaching from the west. I imported this picture into Lightroom, and played around with a few different presets before I settled on this one, which is contrasty and made for a dramatic sky. Aimee's face was too underexposed so I used an adjustment brush to lighten it with the Exposure setting.

Katie surprised me during the walk in that she was not nervous, and didn't get anxious when strange dogs passed nearby a few times going in the opposite direction on the trail. I was quite pleased at how well both girls, especially Katie, handled being walked at the point. But then, I needn't have worried because Aimee handles Greyhounds well, has three Greyhounds of her own, and assisted me at the last few Greyhound gatherings that we've both attended.

Ever since Aimee and I met on a Greyhound forum a few years back I'd been hoping she'd get the opportunity to meet our girls. I was never entirely sure that she'd ever get the chance. I'm so glad that it came true last week.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 18-200mm zoom set at 18mm and the SB-400 flash; program mode; camera used 1/250 second at f/20 at ISO 400; slow-sync; auto white balance; normal JPG.)