Ron & Brenda’s Great Adventure

Chapter 2

Working backward chronologically, in December, 2018 – Christmas week to be precise – we drove south to Morro Bay, on the California Central Coast about 20 miles north of San Luis Obispo. I asked Brenda what she wanted to do for her birthday – it was her 80^th – and she told me that she wanted to spend a week at Morro Bay. Larry Desmond had told her about the place, and it sounded like a place she wanted to visit.

We left on a Sunday with no drama, because the weather was beautiful, and we were going to stop overnight in Walnut Creek with Avi and Jackie. It was a little less than 300 miles to Morro Bay from Walnut Creek, so it was an easy drive the next day and we arrived at the campground around 4 pm, which is about the latest that I like to get to our destination in order to have time to set up before dark.

The RV park wasn’t as fancy as the one in Indio, but it was very nice, and located a couple of miles from the coast, so it was an easy drive to the ocean.

Morro Bay is a small town with a funky vibe and population of about 10,000. The dominant feature is Morro Rock, El Morro – which is Spanish for crown shaped hill – named in 1542 by Portuguese explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo. Another interpretation for the name was the similarity the rock has to a cap that was worn by the Moors.

Morro Rock is actually one of the smaller of a line of extinct volcanoes formed about 25 million years ago, that includes nine peaks running from San Luis Obispo to Morro Bay, named the Nine Sisters because they’re situated close together, in a row. Contrary to what I originally thought, Morro Rock isn’t the cone of an old volcano, but a plug that was formed in the main lava tube of the volcano. The plug stopped the flow of lava out of the top of the volcano and over time, wind and rain eroded away the sides of the cone until only the plug remained.

The rock is home to several species of birds, including cormorants and peregrine falcons. We weren’t able to spot any falcons but we did see several cormorants and blue herons.

And that kiddies, was the historical/geology lesson for the day! Don’t you feel enriched?!

Because it’s a seafront town, with a fishing fleet, we were compelled to have a fresh fish lunch on the pier. It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it! There were several qualified candidates along the wharf, but we selected one that Brenda had read about in the AAA guide book – The Dockside Restaurant. We were forced to sit at a table that was on the deck next to the water, overlooking Morro Rock and warmed by the afternoon sun.

This was the thing that attracted us to California in the first place; sitting by the ocean just taking it all in. Life has a way of slowing down in a place like that!

Naturally, the food was fresh and delicious and completely enjoyable. It was interesting to note that several people had dogs with them, being permitted because it was a patio and not an inside restaurant. At any rate, the dogs were well behaved and unobtrusive, and everything was mellow. We shared a bowl of clam chowder and a platter of fried oysters that we have adopted as our all time favorite seafood dish, as well as a serving of fries. We also had beer to wash it all down.

The restaurant had a small retail fish store so we bought a 2 ½ pound crab (another of our all time favorite seafood dishes) for dinner that night, back at the trailer. It was probably the meatiest, sweetest and tastiest crab we had ever eaten.

Editor’s note: yesterday, Valentines Day, I bought another 2 ½ pound crab at the fish place in Ukiah; it’s really a tent that’s set up in an empty lot at the south end of town, that’s run by some guys who bring in fresh fish from Noyo Harbor every day. Brenda and I ate the crab for dinner – at home – with a bowl of crab bisque from Costco, fresh faccicio that Brenda just sorta threw together before dinner, and a nice red wine; we didn’t have any white in the house, but you gotta do what you gotta do! The point of the digression is to assert that, in our opinion, with crab, bigger is definitely better, because this was the second time we had a crab that weighed more than 2 pounds, and they were both the best we had ever eaten.

But back to Morro Bay: I was so eager to actually get into it that I neglected to take a picture of the crab before we ate it, but it did occur to us that we needed to pay homage to the little guy before discarding the shells, so the accompanying picture is an artistic composition entitled: “Deconstructed Crustacean”; or “Alas poor Yuric, I knew him well!”

Deconstructed Crustacean

We spent the next few days driving around, exploring the area. One day we drove about 20 miles north to The Piedras Blancas elephant seal rookery, a beach that spreads over six miles of shoreline about 5 miles north of Hearst Castle. The site is supported by an organization called the Friends of the Elephant Seal, and they have constructed a fenced, wheelchair accessible walk that overlooks the beach below. On the overlook, we are directly above the beach, about 20 or 30 feet up, and we are able to comfortably stand there for as long as we want, observing the elephant seals below. There are several docents that circulate among the spectators to explain about what we are seeing.

And what we saw were a bunch of huge male elephant seals behaving badly! I’m here to tell you that there was no political correctness or gender equality on display on the beach that day! They were acting like a bunch of – animals! Horney bulls!

But, that’s nature in the raw, so who am I to judge?

And these guys were huge, with some adult males weighing in at 4,000 to 5,000 pounds!

The elephant seals got our appetites worked up, so we drove a little further north to the Ragged Point Inn where we again had a fresh seafood lunch. At the restaurant we had a view of the south end of Big Sur through an interesting wooden sculpture named: “Portal to Big Sur”.

Back at Morro Bay, we spent some time walking around the Rock, observing the birds and admiring the geological features. We could spend hours just browsing around.

Once again, this was a quick trip that convinced us that this is what we want to be doing for the foreseeable future.