Wild Places and Open Spaces

Hello Everyone!

After being somewhat stranded on Memorial Day weekend because of crowds, we said “Adios Amigos” to our noisy neighbours and set out for the coast, hopeful that we would find a campsite even though it was Sunday (and the holiday was Monday). We did end up finding a campsite (what luck) in San Luis Obisbo and went to a Strawberry festival in Arroyo Grande. We stuffed our faces with strawberry parfait. The campground we stayed at was simple, but had great ideas…they had a beautiful botanical garden with plants from all over, and they were in the midst of building an education centre to teach children about sustainable living; what a fabulous idea!! In the morning we went for a hike. Unfortunately the area was tick infested, and surprise, surprise, they all seemed to want Jim for breakfast. On the positive side, before cutting our hike short we got to see a black shouldered kite (or white tailed kite depending on what US State one is in). (Maybe you could sort this out for us Jake?)

After “deticking” we continued up the coast, driving up Hwy 1. We pulled off the highway to take a pic of the coast, and low and behold, there were a ton (actually several tons if you want to get technical) of elephant seals hauled up on the shore. Amazing sight, but very noisy! The “barking” that these seals do sound very much like loud (very loud) human belches (ones that many men would be glad to call their own I am sure!). Could have watched them for hours, but alas, we are always on the go, and are still running out of daylight each day.

The coast of California is NOT warm. It is foggy, often overcast and rainy. I guess in the backs of our minds we knew this, but we were hoping there would be at least some sun… We found a wonderful state park by chance (it’s always by chance or word along the way) Limekiln State Park – has history, beach access, waterfall and wonderful forest too. It was here that we were introduced to a curious creature – the banana slug. When we happened across this enormous, bright yellow, slimy “thing”, I snapped a million pics thinking we had found a new entity or something…turns out they are very common, and we have seen many since; however, none so yellow as that first one. On our walk to the beach (keep in mind I am wearing fleece and goretex jacket and pants) there was one person who obviously did not think it was as cold as I…to Jim’s delight, off in the distance there were a couple of girls, late teens/early 20’s, one taking pics of the other fully naked in provocative positions on some rocks on the waters edge. And, Jim, just so happened to have his zoom lens on. Needless to say, Jim pretended to take pics of an oyster catcher (black bird with orange beak and “stilt-like” legs for all you women that care) while snapping photos of the girl for all you dirty old men we know back at home.

Continued up Hwy 1 til we hit Monteray. Jim had really been looking forward to visiting the aquarium here, and it proved to be well worth it. The displays and marine life appear to be kept very well, and there was a ton of educational material too….especially about how to choose seafood carefully. The aquarium was not only eye-candy, it also had some history. It was built on the site of the old cannery there. Oh yeah, we had the first coffee of our trip here….wasn’t Timmy’s, but still okay (Starbucks).

At this point in our trip, camping has been getting much more expensive – $25.00/night, however, showers are getting less expensive.

We headed for San Francisco and the foggy golden gate bridge. San Francisco was chaotic downtown, until we found the waterfront which was less chaotic, but very touristy. I guess all cities are the same…we keep thinking that we will find one that we actually don’t mind, but this hasn’t happened yet. At the wharf a large number of California Sea Lions were hauled up on wooden docks that at one time were used by boats. Now that the sea lions call them their own, the area is designated for the animals only. I am sure the tourist industry is not suffering because of it. We took the ferry over to Alcatraz – Jim had already been there, but I had not. Because of this, I purchased the “audio tour” which provides detailed information about the cell blocks and happenings at the prison while you wear headphones. Most people do the audio tour. It was such a strange sight to see almost everyone walking around the prison with glazed looks on their faces waiting for the next prompt from the “mother-ship” over the headphones. The prison itself was pretty neat – saw Al Capone’s (supposed) cell, solitary confinement, as well as a bunch of nesting California gulls who call the prison their brooding grounds. A previous inmate was there signing copies of his book he published about life at Alcatraz…one day a maximum security inmate, next day millionaire writer.

Muir Woods National Monument just north of San Fran was a nice walk through beautiful, enormous redwoods – a nice addition to the sequoias (which have desensitized us as far as tree bigness goes) we had already seen.

Yosemite was VERY busy. Camped 10 miles outside the park. The valley in the park was created by glaciers that left behind many large granite domes that appear to “light up” just before dusk. Not all the park was open yet though due to the roads being covered with snow at higher elevations. Because the spring melt was heavily underway, all the waterfalls in the park were raging full force. We hiked up one of the falls, getting ourselves completely soaked. At the top we met a wonderful woman named Rita who had also done the (moderately strenuous) hike and was looking for an alternate way down. She had left the party of women she was with because “all they do is complain”. Because we were unsure of any other way down, we decided that the three of us would walk down together. We learned that Rita, who is 67 years old, had already hiked 15 miles that day and had been coming to Yosemite for 50 years! It was interesting to hear her account of the park (reality check) over the years, although somewhat discouraging for mother nature unfortunately. Saw our first black bear of the trip at Yosemite – the black bears here are actually brownish-golden in colour. The grizzly has been extirpated from the area.

Ventured inland to Napa Valley. Napa Valley in a “nutshell” was warm and sunny, atrociously expensive and “uppity”. A regular 2 bedroom house costs $675,000 with a townhome going for $475,000. Went to the “Old Faithful” geyser of CA, which they now use to help predict earthquakes. It was also here that the owner breeds “Tennessee fainting goats”…look them up on GOOGLE, they are pretty interesting.

Continued up the coast again and found ourselves at Redwoods National Park. Decided to do some interior camping here, so we rented a bear cannister and were off. We camped 2 miles in from the trailhead just outside Tall Trees Grove. However, with my navigation skills it took us 6 miles to get there. Camped on a quiet gravel bed beside a creek. Later that night, just as we were falling asleep we heard what sounded like people walking in the water. Jim got his “bear slayer” ready (an axe that lies under his pillow every night) and we peeked out of the tent. A lonesome bull elk was walking up the creek about 20 feet away from us. Next day, after crossing/wading through the creek many times, we happened upon a dragonfly nymph just coming out of the water. We had seen this before, just as I am sure many people reading this have. What we had never experienced before was watching one become a dragonfly! We watched in awe for 45 minutes as the dragonfly broke out of its nymph exoskeleton and became its new self. It truly was one of the most spectacular things I have witnessed.

In a nutshell, California is a very big state that no matter where you are they claim that it is either the largest, the best, the smallest, the deepest, the lowest, the most wonderful thing in the entire world you’ve ever seen. I don’t know if all they say is accurate, but what I do know is that its one of the most expensive places in the world. Oh, but one thing that is free here is the wildflowers, and they are amazing. The California Poppy brightens up fields and roadsides, and the Foxglove is the tallest, most rich looking I’ve ever seen! It puts mine I had to shame!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 20th, 2006 at 2:45 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.