Driving Day: California

We left the beach this morning and headed east-ish. We had to drive north for way longer than seemed fair, before turning east and going through some of the most unattractive country since the barren mid-west.

The area from around Bakersfield is so odd. It's really dry and desolate, the kind of place where you think nothing should live, and yet, there are all these green farm fields full of grapes, peppers, berries and fruit and nut trees, all watered with purchased, precious water. What a bizarre agricultural system we have. Lots of pistachio and almond trees as well. Lesson #347 on this trip: Pistachios do indeed grown on trees. Now I know.

Oil wells, somewhere around Bakersfield.

I tink these were the almond trees.

So these should be pistachio trees.

 After we passed Bristow, we entered the Mojave Dessert. The scenery here is much more interesting. You feel like you can see forever, even though it's hazy or smokey or something. But you also feel like you drive forever and don't get anywhere. But it was a much more interesting drive then the earlier portion.

And these are Joshua Trees. This completes
our botanical lesson for today.

Mojave Dessert

More of the Mojave.

Math lesson

We ran out of steam just around the California/Arizona line, near Needles, Calif, and not too far from Lake Havasou, in Calizona RV Park (California/Arizona... get it?), the oldest continually operating RV park on Route 66. So far, Route 66 not much to write home about. So that's all I'll say about that. ;-)

Let me just tell you this.. holy crap! It's hot!!! Yeah yeah yeah, it's a dry heat. It's still hot. It's 99 degrees at 8:30 at night in the pitch dark. It's so hot that the water coming out of the tap is nearly body temperature, even though it's coming out of the ground and directly through our hose to the sink. Blech. Hot! Our AC hasn't caught up yet, so it's still warm in here. Dad was teaching the kids math, aka, black jack. We figured it was appropriate since we're only about 100 miles from Vegas. Maybe we should take a detour north and try to earn some more vacation money!

I found this wine at the last campground.
Happy Camper Merlot, in a big
plastic cup. says it all..

Tomorrow: Grand Canyon!

Kayaking and Sea Lions

We headed about 30 minutes north to Morro Bay this morning. It's a great place for kayaking, as it's a protected bay behind a sand spit, so it's fairly calm, no waves, yet still all the salt-water sealife.

We had a great paddle, saw really large jellyfish, climbed on the dunes for a picnic, then finished up a tour of the harbor to hang out with the sea lions. There is a large group of seal lions who live in the bay and we paddled fairly close to them and just watched them play. They also swim right by the kayaks and pop up in front of or behind you. Very entertaining.

Conner in one kayak, Maggie and Dad in
a double. 

Maggie and Daddy

Kate with Morro Rock in the background.

Picnic on the dune

The sand was so warm.

Conner had the kayak that was tough to
paddle, so he needed a nap. 

The seal lions, hanging out on the city
floating docks.

Hearst Castle Visitor Center

Since we were close, we drove up the coast a little further to Hearst Castle. We decided to save the $100 and just looked at the free exhibits in the visitor center. It was very interesting and might be worth a full tour next time.

Exhausted, we headed back south, with a stop at In N Out Burger to celebrate National Cheeseburger Day. One more sunset and one more frozen yogurt, and we are winding up our time on the Pacific Coast.

In N Out Burger, all we dreamed of and more.

Tomorrow we start to head east for the long trek back home.

Frozen yogurt and a Pacific Ocean sunset. It
doesn't get much better than this.

Sunset over Pismo Beach.

Another great show.

Pismo Beach, California

We've been on the coast of California for a few days, staying in Pismo Beach, which is about halfway between San Francisco and LA. It's a nice area, known for clams. The weather has been cool, and mostly clear after the morning fog burns off. But it's been pretty cold for swimming. The Pacific is WAY colder than the Atlantic. I had no idea. Even in the warmer parts of the state, further south, the water temps are barely in the 60s. brrrrrrr. But we've been enjoying the nice views and gorgeous sunsets and the kids have gotten wet a few times. Plus, the RV resort has a heated pool!

We stopped off to see The Redwoods on our way to Pismo. Wow! Amazing! It felt like we were in another world. The photos don't do these trees justice. They are just so humongous.

Just a stump, but it's big enough to live in!

The roots of these trees were much smaller
than I would have expected for such huge trees. 

More roots.

This downed tree made a fun bridge over
a dry creek.

This is a burl, how a Redwood ensures it's
survival. These burls have hundreds of
pods of new redwood trees in them.

If the tree is stressed or falls, new trees grow
from these burls. 

Inside the base of a giant. You can also see
the fire damage on the left.

Sisterly love.

The canon.

Ready, aim ...

Vineyards in the Sonoma Valley.

Coppolla's Vineyard.

After we checked in at Pismo Coastal Village RV Park, we headed down to check out the beach. The park is right next to the beach, and you can see the sunset from the clubhouse.

A little cool

 Looking back toward the RV park.

Brrrrrrrrrrrr.

Two minutes late for the sunset.

Ahhhh. warm water.

Nice pool

The next morning, we headed into town (on our bikes) to get Western Cinnamon Rolls, apparently they're famous. We strolled around town and did a little shopping and checked out the fishing pier, then headed back to get ready for the beach. We drove down to the next town, Shell Beach, because we heard it was a nice, fairly private beach, with great shells. Not much luck on the shells, but we found some awesome tidal pools, saw some sea lions and otters, and watched a sea anemone eat a crab.

We headed back to Pismo and had some of their famous clam chowder, in a sourdough bread bowl. OMG. It was sooooo delicious.

Western Cinnamon Roll

Sugared up.

On the fishing per.

Pelicans everywhere. 

Add caption

Cute clam murals all over town.

They love their clams.

Cool tree perched on top of the sea cliffs.

Shell Beach.

Tidal pool

This star fish was in the tidal pool

Anemone

They're so grown up!

These guys were ?? parasailing ?? along the cliffs.
Everyone wanted to try it. haha. 

Clam chowder, topped with crab and shrimp.

Rock N Roll

Frozen yogurt, build your own.

Made it for the sunset tonight.