When a friend calls up and suggests taking Poppy up the coast for a couple nights, you say Yes, please!
It was an easy couple hours' drive to Cambria/San Simeon, and Claudia acted as the perfect navigator and tour guide!
She planned our campground and our activities! It was perfect!
Our home away from home was Hearst San Simeon State Park. The campground was pretty, wide open, and quiet.
It was a very foggy couple of days, which surprised us. The weather apps had deceived us! Still, it is a beautiful area, with wide open, non-tar-marred beaches and lots of birds and other wildlife!
We enjoyed a good, long beach walk after we arrived on Monday afternoon! Chatting with a good friend makes 6.5 miles go by in a flash!
On Tuesday, we walked another six miles all told, along meadow-y beach bluffs, on another beach, along the bluffs at Piedras Blancas elephant seal rookery, and through the cute town of Cambria, where we tchotchke-shopped, bought some yummy sweet baked goods from Linn's (olallieberry pie, anyone?), and picked up a delicious Thai dinner.
Wednesday we walked another beach, then drove to Morro Bay and watched some otters! So dang cute!
Here are my photos, not in order at all!
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Morro Rock, what you can see of it! |
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| Poppy's comfy spot |
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| So damp the trees were dripping |
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| This trail at Fiscalini Ranch Preserve had many interesting benches |
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| The early-morning view from Poppy's bedroom window |
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| The area had a scarecrow event. This one is for Diver Son! |
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We were told that these animals are juvies. Their moms and dads are thousands of miles away, feeding. Dads are up in Alaska's Alutian Islands, due back in winter, and moms are at sea, up to 4000 miles out and a mile down. They will mosey back at about five miles per hour. The females will return shortly after the males to give birth and love their husbands.
This is the fall haul-out, when thousands of juveniles hang out on the beach to rest and develop after their thousands-of-miles migration to Alaska and back.
You can see them in a live cam here.
Here's a little video:
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| A bunch of quail at our campground! There were lots! |
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| Otters in Morro Bay |
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| Another sea otter. Crappy pic, but I gotta prove we saw otters! |
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| Blue skies. What what?! |
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| Da Rock |
Again, a beautiful, supremely accessible spot, but one I haven't visited for a decade or more. Why? I have no idea! I want to go back!
Thank you, Claudia!!
