Wine Country

As we headed out of Morro Bay, we saw this sight and had to stop.  I spoke to the owner of this avocado farm and found out he had cut all his trees back to save them from dying from the drought. They should live about three years with little water and will come back fast if we get good rains this winter.  They have about 27,000 trees and many are still in production.  We bought some of the best-tasting avocados we've ever had.

About 35 miles inland from Morro Bay is Paso Robles (PASS-oh ROW-bulls to the local rednecks, PAH-so RRRRROW-blez if you can actually speak Spanish).  Paso is the center of the central coast wine production area, which is booming.  Named the top wine production region in the world by some, it is at least a very popular one.  The locals like to say it is like Napa Valley thirty years ago. In many ways, that is true--smaller crowds, more relaxed tasting, spectacular scenery in a hilly classic California setting. There are about 250 wineries in this area and the wine is quite good.  The town of Paso itself is beautiful and clean with a huge town green and a small downtown dominated by restaurants, wine tasting, olive oil tasting and more wine tasting.

This barn is on the site of the winery we stopped at for tasting.  It has been a working ranch since the late 1800s, a winery for about 20 years.

Lynnae is great at spotting interesting things for me to photograph as I drive.  I am so glad she caught this truck along the road.

As we drove back home, the sun was just setting and the heritage oaks along the road were spectacular!

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Side Trips in the Morro Bay Region

We spent a lot of time at the Morro Bay town beach, which is dog-friendly, and hanging around the park, but we also took a lot of side trips.  One day we went down to Montana de Oro State Park, which has an absolutely spectacular bluff trail that winds above the rocky shoreline below.  Pictures (at least MY pictures) don't do this area justice.

Spooner's Cove

While throwing the ball for Tucker at Spooner's Cove, we talked to some fishermen who were pulling up in their kayaks.  This guy was pretty happy with his catch!

Spooner's Cove Beach

On to Morro Bay

We continue our trek south for the winter by driving just a short 35 miles down to the wonderful fishing town of Morro Bay. We are camped at Morro Bay State Park, which is right across the road from the bay, which is a long estuary separated from the open ocean by a long spit of sand dunes. Morro Bay is a great place to visit on a lot of dimensions.  It is a real working fishing harbor and you can see the fishing boats unloading fish and watch them motor out of the bay.  The local seafood restaurants have VERY fresh fish and the road along the bay, called the Esplanade, is just the right amount of funky/tacky to make it fun but not so much to make your eyes sore from rolling them too much.

This is a submarine for rescuing people from a disabled big submarine.  It sits in a parking lot along the Esplande on the site of the future maritime museum being planned.

Also along the water is the Skateboard Museum.  Skateboarding was basically invented in Southern California, but I never found out why the museum is in Morro Bay.  Fun stop for a few minutes.

Fishing boat with Morro Rock in the background.

Feeding a California Sea Lion

The big feature in town is "the Rock", Morro Rock.  This is a volcanic cone, one of several up the valley behind the town.  It is almost 600 feet high and sits at the mouth of the bay.  It is quite impressive and is visible from almost everywhere downtown.  It tends to find itself in a lot of pictures.

Hearst Castle

Jeopardy trivia answer:  Hearst Castle
Question:  What is the second most popular tourist attraction in California?

Hearst Castle Website

When William Randolph Hearst died in 1951, his will left his beloved "ranch" in San Simeon to the State of California, who opened it to the public a few years later. Today, they run four different tours of sections of the property, with the main house tour running 50 people up there every 10 minutes from 8 AM to 5 PM all year long.  At $25 a head!

There is no question it is one of the wonders of our modern era.  There is probably no way to estimate the value of the home, land and the contents today.  Hearst spared no expense in building this mansion and spent his entire life collecting European art to fill it--from the 15th century Italian ceilings and 14th century stone doorways disassembled and shipped by boat to this remote (at the time, 1920s) to the innumerable Medieval religious paintings, Greek and Roman and Egyptian sculptures and 16th century furniture.  On one floor, all the lampshades are 800-year-old lambskin vellum with monk-scribed Gregorian chant music.  In the sitting room for guest entertaining (about 100' x 30') the walls are lined with choir seats from European cathedrals.  Hearst brought in and planted over 70,000 trees on the property, along with a zoo that had zebras (still grazing today), polar bears and grizzly bears, giraffes and dozens of kinds of antelope.

Of course, he could afford it.  He had taken the wealth he inherited from his father and built a privately-owned commercial empire that included hundreds of newspapers, magazines, radio stations, movie studios; a ranch that covered over 250,000 acres; employed 30,000 people.

On top of that, he was a huge entertainer who invited the notables of his day to be guests at the ranch. His guests ranged from actors like Cary Grant, Erol Flynn, Joan Crawford, Jean Harlow, Charlie Chaplin and David Niven to statesmen and notables like Calvin Coolidge, David Ben Gurion, Douglas MacArthur, Charles Lindberg and Winston Churchill.  Anyway, it is an amazing place with an amazing history and touring it is a bit like visiting the Louvre and a king's palace all rolled into one.

Visit the site above to see good pictures and read more about it, but put it on your bucket list of things to do if you haven't already visited.

A bedroom in one of the three guest cottages adjoining the main house

The pantry

The front entrance and facade of the main house

A view looking up to the main house tower across some of the elaborate grounds

The Roman pool, lined with a million pieces of Murano glass 

Elephant Seals!

It is so great to be able to tell a story of environmental degradation that has a happy ending!  Back in the 1800s, the elephant seal was hunted for its oily blubber and taken down to near extinction.  By 1920, there were less than 50 individuals left and the US and Mexican governments stepped in to protect them.  Fast forward nearly 100 years later and there are about 175,000 of these animals and they are spreading.  In fact, in 1990, a small herd of them showed up for the first time on a beach just south of the Piedras Blancas lighthouse and the following year a few pups were born.  Last year over 5,000 pups were born along a 6-mile stretch of beaches north of Cambria.

These are remarkable animals indeed.  The females reach about 12 feet and 1,800 pounds, while the alpha males can be up to 16 feet long and weigh 5,000 pounds!  They spend most of the year at sea, never touching land for months on end.  They dive thousands of feet deep for up to 2 hours to feed. Twice a year they return to their home rookery to molt, mate and bear young.  The males fight bloody battles to claim a piece of beach and the females that will stay there.  While we were there, it was the young males and females too young to mate who were "hauled up" on the beach, catching rays and getting a tan.  We saw some teenage males sparring in practice for adulthood, but mostly the seals just hung around and literally covered the beaches. It is really amazing to be up pretty close (20 feet or so up on the bluff above the beach) to these large, wild animals and watch them interact.

South of Big Sur

We reluctantly left Kirk Creek Campground and headed to our next destination, Cambria and San Simeon, just 35 miles down the coast.  About 15 miles before we got there, the rugged coastal hills flattened out somewhat and receded from the shore, making the road much more gentle and exposing a much drier and grassy landscape.  Cambria is a tiny town with lots of charm (and more than a few inns and motels supporting Hearst Castle nearby, but more on that later).  We started enjoying the unique character of this part of the coast right away, especially the elephant seals and the great dog beaches. We took a tour of the Piedras Blancas lighthouse, dating back to 1874, and found it outstanding on lots of levels--great scenery, interesting history and an exemplary case of restoration done by volunteers.  On the latter point, volunteers removed by hand about 20 TONS of iceplant which had been planted by the Coast Guard over the years across almost the entire site.  Once they removed the iceplant, the native plants returned and now the whole site is all native plants except for the Monterey Cypress, which are very picturesque and have much historical significance, so they are leaving those.

The original building that housed the ""fog signal" equipment 

The original top section of the lighthouse that contained the fresnel lens and oil lamp is missing and waiting to be restored, but the light still operates with an automated electric light

Lots of birds around here too.

This heron was strutting around just behind our trailer in the morning

These guys are turkey vultures, very common everywhere in California, but they don't often pose in rows!

Lunch at Sebastians, a historic store in San Simeon

Inland to the Mission

We took one day to drive the incredibly windy road east through the hills to one of the original California missions, established in 1775, Mission San Antonio de Padua.  While it was under renovation for earthquake safety, it was still quite beautiful and interesting.  They had a gorgeous rose garden in the courtyard and some remarkable heritage oaks in the surrounding countryside.