100623 Montana de Oro & Big Sur

Jun 23, 2010 - I spent some time in beautiful Montana de Oro ("gold mountain") State Park today, which was the highlight of my visit to Morro Bay. (Unfortunately my time there was all spent under clouds.) I stopped at the beautiful Spooners Cove Beach, drove through the eucalyptus grove, watched some gulls bathing enthusiastically in a stream, saw the sandspit that goes out to Morro Rock, and hiked the Bluff Trail. Wonderful trail! Loved it. Part of the two-mile trail took me down to the beach, but most of it was close to the edge of the bluff so you could see the ocean below. The wildflowers on the bluff were impressive, but especially the gold ones were thick and beautiful. Birds I saw today for the first time: black phoebes arguing, California towhee, and a mountain bluebird juvenile. I also saw a California Quail with a bunch of chicks, but they scattered too quickly for me to get a picture.
Then I headed up Hwy 1 toward Monterey and stopped and saw a colony of elephant seals. Interesting! Mostly they were just clumped together, sleeping. Well, kind of sleeping. They were pretty restless sleepers, most of them. Heard some vocalizing – a very deep and throbbing sound. Watched one male chase a female into another male’s territory. She'd look back over her shoulder every few feet, to check and see how close he was to her. You could almost see the relief on her face when she got into the other male's territory, and could relax. The whole thing was very comical. I enjoyed watching them. I don't think I've ever seen elephant seals before.

Finally, I took Hwy 1 up through the Big Sur area, to get back to Monterey. This is one of America's most incredible drives, with the road running right along the coastline, between the high cliffs and the ocean, and sometimes up on the cliffs. It was getting dark as I got to Carmel; I want to go back and do the last part of the drive again in the daytime.

Spending time along the coastline, I've gotten to watch the interplay between the line of clouds/fog and the coastline. Often the line is very distinct. Often I can see that further inland the sun is shining, as well as further out to sea the sun is shining [photo below], while we sit shrouded in clouds.