Saturday, September 28th
Fogged in Golden Gate Bridge
Fogged in Golden Gate Bridge
GREETINGS FROM MORRO BAY, CA (Marjie writing - little bit of wine in her, please make allowances for this excess!)
Before I start this update, I have to do something .. Ready??? Go with me now .
I have a tune to sing for you guys. Here we go -
Begin harmonica blues riff here .. " I got the blues . I got the blues ... I got the end- of-our-really-great-adventure-and-now-I-gotta-go-home blues." (cont) dog howling, harmonica wailing -- you catch the drift here.
Well, here we are at day two in Morro Bay. Tomorrow morning we head for home. In truth, thoughts of our lives at home began crowing into our minds about 4 days ago. Bills to be paid, cars that need attention, people to see, back to work (eventually), etc. Sigh
Let's go back to Bodgea Bay instead and continue the story of our great adventure - YEAH, that sounds much better.
So, we left Bodega Bay early in the morning, once again under a fog bank. I swear, there is no coastal scenery in California . there is Hwy 1, and then to the west a huge fog bank. That's it! On the east side there are rolling hills (brown though they are), ranch houses from the 30's, cows . SHEEP!, small towns, lots of interesting stuff . but to the west .. naddah! Even Big Sur was one huge fog bank. We crawled along at about 20 mph, could hardly see the hwy in front of the truck. I pittied the bicyclists and bikers riding in this weather - oh yeah, we're having fun now! Anyway, south of Bodega Bay, heading into San Francisco are actually some really great places - well, if you like isolated, back-in-time feeling places. We found a beautiful bay with a beautifully forested peninsula across the bay from it. There were a few small fishing villages, very remote places. The town of Point Reyes was really interesting, very "granolia" looking (art, organic produce, book stores - you know, heaven!). We decided to go find the Pt Reyes Lighthouse, so we did not stop in town. Some other day perhaps.
Of course, we got half way around the bay on the other side before there was a "thoughtfully" placed sign stating the lighthouse has closed today! Oh well, we saw some beautiful secenery. In the small village of Invernnes is a Chech restaurant and "resort" with the onion bulb building toppers - like Russia in a small way, right here in the USA. Next thing you know we are twisting and turning again on those hair-raising, cliff hanging Hwy 1 roads, and then we are into houses. Pop-zip, and we are onto 101 and over the Golden Gate (also totally fogged in - bummer). $5 bucks later, and we are into the outskirts of San Fran and traffic . eeeeeeeeehhhhhh gads, the CITY! And we thought Sebastopol was big with 7,800 pop - HA! We were like two country-bumpkins craining our necks and staring out the windows of the truck (the VERY DIRTY truck, I might add). Back onto Hwy 1, above Halfmoon Bay and we spot a Starbucks off to the left. First one we've seen in awhile. Of course we stop. Very civilized.
Next stop was Halfmoon Bay and a search for a public Library, to check (yet again) on our camping reservations at the HP campground. Cute town (very pricey) . until we saw the front page of the local paper - there was a photo of the morning traffic heading back into SF - NO THANKS! We headed south again, and Santa Cruz started showing up on the road signs. Now the sun was out, and YUP, there is a lot of beautiful coastline along the Calif. Coast. Right around this point on the coast (to me) it started feeling like southern California again. I'm not sure what it was .. the sun probably, the surfers surely, but I think it was more the smell of the ocean seemed to change somehow. We hit Santa Cruz in early afternoon, and also hit afternoon traffic. We pushed on through and landed in Monterey - Cannery Row to be specific. Our intention was to have a full morning at the Monterey Bay Aquarium before getting to Pfeiffer State Park where we had reservations the next day.
Monterey - what can I say? Great city when there are NO people around! We were fortunate to arrive in the middle of the week, and just after their annual Jazz Fest. I think the locals were pretty burned out on tourists, but they were still polite to us. The town was empty - PERFECT! We decided to go to the Aquarium and pre-buy our tickets for the next day - guess what??? We were able to go in for the last hour of that day! GREAT IDEA. We did a quick tour of the entire Aquarium (hard not to stop and get lost in the exhibits, it is a really beautiful place). It was great to know the scope of the place so we knew how long we could linger at each stop the following day. We had dinner that night at a really cool place called Bubba Gump's - from the movie Forrest Gump. Delicious food. We adopted out waiter - Russel - who is the same age as Alyssa (21) and also a college student. He even pushed over into our booth and passed the time conversing with us while we ate. What a nice guy. There is hope for the future generations - I've seen it!
Cannery Row is a wonderful place to wake up to. You feel like you've gone back into the 30's and you are a part of history. Nevermind the beautiful Monterey Bay (igonore the shops and commercialism. I swear, if Steinbeck came back in time to today, and saw his face/name on everything - he'd be pissed). We walked down to the local Starbucks - which has to be THE coolest Starbucks ever! It's located on a corner, in an old cannery building - overlooking the main street - everyone on the street is about eye-level with the chair seats. There are b/w photos from the movie, and from the area in it's hey-day. After our Buckies, off we went to the Aquarium. Oh MAN, what a place. It is beautifully designed (architecturelly), the building constantly brings you back to views (floor to ceiling views) of the bay - water below your feet views - gorgeous. Some of the tanks are floor to ceiling too ( 3 floors high), and you can stop and view at any level, including from the top. What amazed me first, was to see that some fish just float . I thought they all swam constantly, different speeds of swimming, but swimming. Nope, some of the fish just hang out and float. We spent a lot of time at the Otter tank, watching the two otters play and be fed. The upper level is very close and the otters swim right in front of your nose. The otters can see us too. One of them - Mae (the female) was a complete showoff. A window of school children seemed to really catch her attention, she spent about 5 minutes in front of them twirling and flipping around. We also really enjoyed the jellyfish exhibits and the deep bay tanks. I can't capture everything here - you just have to go! The end.
We headed south to make sure our Pfieffer reservations did not get forfitted. We got Camp Brewer set up in record time. Thank goodness we let the tent dry well the at the last camp. Out tent spot was right along the river, nestled among the old old huge Oaks. We could have camped at the base of Redwoods, but opted for a little sun this time. Our drive in and out of camp took us through the Redwood groves each time. From our camp site we could look 180* in either direction and only feintly see our camping neighbors in either direction. Nice. There is a nice Lodge, restaurant and store at Pfeiffer. We stocked up with wood and food, then moised over for freshly made fruit ice cream (cherry for Ron, peach for me - again we are roughing it camping, right?) We fell asleep that night to the sound of Big Sur river rushing past our camp site. Ahhhhhhh!
The next morning we were up early and heading north for Point Lobos Reserve (just south of Carmel). What an interesting place. Man do they have a lot of RULES, but obviously they need them. The place is pristine and beautiful. The wild animals are content and undisturbed. Beautiful small bays with seals and otters. Huge sea stack rocks full of sea birds. Crystal white grained sand beaches with turquoise blue water. Beautiful Cypress tree groves that were protected in the 30's. The history of the place is interesting too. There was an abalone canning factory in the bay after WWI. Prior to WWI the USA got all it's abalone from Europe (ok, this stuff facinates me - Ron is yawning away). Anyway, the area was also a whaling cove (for a short time) and a barracks for WWII army). We walked a lot - rock hopped along the shore and tidepools - and I even dragged Ron down a LOT of wooden steps to a small beach area. I'm sure I will be hearing about this for YEARS to some. Something like, "It's just a BEACH for heavens sake. You've been on beaches before . what's the big deal . ALL RIGHT, I'll go down with you! GEZ.) Ok, let's all have a silent moment of sympathy for Ron. OK, DONE! That's it Ron - GET OVER IT!
Note from Ron : Good grief, we live in San Diego, it's just another beach!!! :} Only more difficult to get to.
Back to Pfeiffer for another great night of camping. The weather warmed up just a bit and our last night there the river sounds were accompanied by croaking frogs! I kid you not. I'm telling you, just like the nature sound tapes. Wonderful. Camp Brewer decided NOT to head back north 3 hours past Santa Cruz for our next camp reservations (we think).
Note from Ron: I never did hear from HP on the reservations. Hmmmm No further comment. :{
Sadly, we broke camp for the last time. sigh. and headed south slowly to Morro Bay. Looks like we will be home sooner than we planned.
After arriving in Morro Bay, Ron and I make a deal that if it rains here we will stay an extra day. It really looks like it wants to rain, so we are tryng to figure our how to do a rain dance. No luck so far, so I guess we'll be home tomorrow .. Sigh.
Note from both of us: Just checked, still no rain. Bummer
We both have discussed this great adventure, and both of us would do it again in an instant. As a matter of fact, we have promised ourselves we will plan another GREAT ADVENTURE again soon. We are thinking perhaps to the Montana, Canadian Border area next time, who knows?
That's it for my insights.
Marjie and Ron