Beautiful California Coast Hike

Here are pictures from a hike we took off of highway 1.  With all the mist coming off the waves and the beautiful colors, this was the prettiest hike we took in California.  (And it was short too). I'm not sure how to explain where it was.  We pulled off the road because there was a sign that said something about sea otters, but we didn't see the otters.

Stopping to look at the waves

On our trip to California it took us hours to get from Cayucos to San Fransisco, mainly because the highway wound up the oceanside, with big mountains on the other side.

We had to stop every few minutes to take random wave pictures.  Here is a rare mama-boy picture.

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.

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.