Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Calvin's photography


What do you think? Is he ready for his own camera?

The Elephant Seal Rookery

I guess I answered my own question.  The seals in the last post were elephant seals too.  They were juvenile males playing. Here they are, all clumped together, molting.  Every year they shed all of their fur (and even their skin... I think) and have new skin and fur underneath.

Are these Elephant Seals or Sea Lions?

When we were in Cayucos, CA, we visited the Elephant Seal Rookery just up the road on highway one. We saw what we thought were elephant seals swimming in the water, but then later, we looked further up the beach and saw about a hundred actual elephant seals laying in the sand and molting.

So my question is, what are these animals in the picture? Elephant seals or sea lions? They just seemed livelier and and their fur was darker than the ones on the beach.

Route 66

I'm still a little confused about what Route 66 actually is.  This is probably because the road isn't called that anymore, but HWY 40 roughly follows it, and every now and then there will be a sign that says "Route 66" and when you follow that sign it will lead you to a ridiculously touristy small town, like Spiegleman, AZ, where we ate dinner.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Last Stage West

Last week we drove from the middle of Arizona to the California coast where we had a hotel in Cayucos. We were so close, we could smell the salty air.  But we'd also been driving all day. Calvin was bored, had just finished shredding our map of California and let out a plaintive, "want an ice cream cone?"

It was hard to say no.  Even though Quinn's jaw was set in that can't-stop-till-I'm-there expression that men get when they're behind the wheel, I asked him to pull over at Last Stage West. Not wanting to piss us both off, he agreed.

And it was the perfect place for a pit stop! It's located on Hwy 41 at 15050 Morro Road.  There was a blues guitar player in the bar and a back room with picnic tables and a pool table.  It was only four in the afternoon, so we had the pool table to ourselves, which is good because Calvin is an insane pool player.

We ordered ice cream and a pulled pork sandwich and after playing some pool ate while watching the coy in the pond out back.  It looked like an awesome place for a party.

Monday, September 13, 2010

The Apple Dumplin'

Whoo hoo! It's my 100th post at babyhikes.

We just got back from our vacation in California. As a family, this was our first pure "vacation" where we took time off just for the sake of winding down and having fun (well, we had a honeymoon). Our first stop was at a restaurant that I wanted to write about earlier - when we drive to Arizona and I lost my camera - but I was so discouraged that I lost my pictures that I didn't post about it.

It's the Apple Dumplin' Restaurant! It's located on highway 40.  Going west through Arizona you take exit 333, and take a right. It's on the left.

It has a cowboy theme, the tables are wearing boots on their legs and there are handkerchiefs tied to the backs of the chairs. The first time we came here we got an amazing breakfast of eggs and biscuits and pancakes.  Then we were too full to try the apple dumplings.

So this time we planned better. We ordered a Navajo Sugarfoot and a Chaco Taco. The Chaco Taco was a little dry, so we both fought over the Sugarfoot. It was taco meat, wrapped up in fluffy fry bread and smothered with a green chile gravy that, after we demolished the sugarfoot, was perfect for dipping our french fries in.

It's not very often that you get old fashioned desserts like apple dumpings. These were whole apples wrapped in pie batter and served hot with ice cream.

Calvin loves the Apple Dumplin' too, but it's really hard to get him to sit still and eat. We usually have to take turns chasing him around while he checks everything out.