Whale Watching!

On Thursday we signed up for a 3-hour tour.  Sounded ominous if anyone still remembers Gilligan!

We have always wanted to go whale watching and we found a good place in Morro Bay that takes you out for 3 hours.  

This is the 53 foot boat we went on.  It holds up to 40 people but we only had 12 people which made it nice for moving around.

 We will go past Morro Rock which we learned was the core of an old volcano.  I wondered if we would see any rock climbers but found out that is not allowed as it is a bird sanctuary.

We passed these resting seals.  They rest from 2 weeks to 2 months!

Here are some resting on buoy which our guide called a Great White Snack Shack!

We got to see some otters!  And Grandpa got some good pictures of them:

Sea otters are very smart.  They have learned to use a rock as a tool.  They also have the densest fur in the animal kingdom at 1 million strands of hair per square inch!

And to me they always look like they are having such a relaxing time!

We're getting further away from the shore:

Grandpa stayed outside the whole time for picture taking.

I stayed inside quite a bit and visited with a woman from Dallas Texas.  Her husband apologized for his scruffy hair and beard but said they were preparing to be in a movie.  She was wearing  a Chosen sweatshirt so I asked if that was the movie.  Sure enough, they will be in the feeding of the 5,000, and they were in California at her sister's because she is a seamstress and they have to provide their own costumes.  I believe they said the shooting was in April.

Finally we saw a spout and the boat will head in that direction.

These are California Gray whales heading north to Alaska.

They can be 45 feet in length and weigh between 17 and 44 TONS!

We felt lucky to see them!

Finally it was time to say good by to the whales!

We headed back...

...and got a close up of the rock.

The city of Morro Bay is just ahead.

Still time later in the day for a sunset walk.

  What a great trip!!

Road Trip: Highway 1!

We spent a few days last week driving down the central California coast on Highway 1.

It is a spectacular drive!

As we were driving along this scenic narrow road I wondered how they had even built the road.  Sure enough there was information at various pull outs.

"A rough wagon road led south from Monterey County and further south it was a mere trail clinging to the hillsides and ridgetops and plunging into leafy canyons.  In 1894 Dr. John Roberts was summoned to a shipwreck near the Point Sur Lighthouse.  After spending hours negotiating the rugged road in a horse-drawn wagon, the doctor (and land speculator) became convinced of the need for an improved scenic road from Carmel to San Simeon...A state senator promoted the road for its military value during WWI.   The highway received the green light in 1919 when voters passed a $1.5 million bond.  Work on the ambitious coast road proved to be dangerous, time consuming, and very expensive.  Frequent landslides and poor weather halted the project or destroyed the work already done."  

"Convicts from San Quentin and Folsom state prisons provided labor.  The use of convicts was seen as a solution to overcrowding in the state's two prisons and they provided a ready pool of labor for contractors who had a difficult time attracting workers for long stretches of time in remote locations."

From a sign at the viewpoint: "When Highway 1 construction began in 1922 it was immediately apparent that a series of bridges would be required to span the dozens of creeks and deep arroyos along the rugged coast.  Of the original 31 bridges built between 1931 and 1938, most have been replaced.  Notable exceptions are seven concrete bridges including the Bixby Creek Bridge which had its own stamp."  They are world famous.

You can see two of the bridges in these next two photos.

As we were driving along, Grandpa reminded me and reminisced about the 4 times he has ridden his bicycle down this road.  One time was the first bike trip he did with the 7th ward Young Men in 1981

And another time was in 1994 with the Folsom 3rd ward Young Men including Jeff.

We made it to our hotel in Cambria just in time to see the sunset over the ocean from our window!

The next morning we were ready to go.  This is what we could see getting into our car.

We drove south to Morro Bay.  In Spanish morro means a rounded hill or promontory.  it was easy to spot!

There is a town of Morro Bay with a wharf to walk along.

This seagull posed for us.

  The rock is very scenic.

  It is not surrounded by water so there is a parking lot...

...with a beach on one side.

Then we drove further south to Pismo Beach and had lunch here.

Late afternoon walk on both of our days taking this boardwalk trail along the coastline which was right outside our hotel.  

We spent some time watching the surfers.

We watched the sunset on one of our walks.