The Dog with the Old Soul

We all have different reasons for going vegan. But since I know that many of you decided to adopt a vegan lifestyle because of your love of animals, I'm using today's blog post to indulge in a bit of shameless self-promotion. This is a plug for a new book that's due to be released tomorrow, July 24th, called The Dog with the Old Soul: True Stories of the Love, Hope and Joy Animals Bring to Our Lives. Why am I promoting this book, you ask? Because I'm the author of "Kissing the Whale," one of the true stories included in this collection.

"Kissing the Whale" describes a trip to Baja I took in 2009 to visit the gray whale nursing grounds at Laguna San Ignacio. This wasn't just any ordinary whale-watching trip, though. At Laguna San Ignacio, mother whales and their calves swim right up to the tiny fishing boats carrying the whale watchers, and they actually let themselves be stroked and patted and, as the title of my story says, kissed. It's an amazing experience!

If, after reading "Kissing the Whale," you decide you'd like to make a similar journey yourself, I highly recommend the tour company that put this trip together -- Baja Discovery. They set up a campground at the edge of the lagoon during whale-watching season featuring cabin tents with cots, a dining tent, solar showers, and clean and odor-free outhouses. At the end of whale-watching season, they take down the whole camp, leaving behind no trace of its existence. And yes, they can accommodate campers with vegan diets, as long as you let them know that you're a vegan when you sign up for the trip.

If you can't make this journey yourself, though, you can still read about it in The Dog with the Old Soul!

(End of shameless self-promotion.)