Camping in Big Sur

In order to get timing right with staying with Kelsy, we backtracked down to Big Sur after staying a couple days in Monterey. We camped in Pfeiffer Big Sur State park right amongst the giant redwood trees for two nights. The first day we got there moderately early in the afternoon, so we had plenty of time to go on a nice hike up to a small waterfall & a valley overlook point.

Glennis doing a bit of yoga inside a hollowed out tree trunk. A big fire sweeped through the area last year, leaving behind quite a bit of damage. Many of the trails were actually closed as the fires + later rains had washed out a lot of the trails.

Along one of the trails

Shannon pitched an awesome tent! She's becoming quite the camper

Grillin' steaks for dinner the first night

Poking around in the fire

Glennis instructed us in the ways of banana boats, which may be the single best thing (and worst for you) to happen to camping since lightweight elastically-bound tent poles. Also, headlamps rock!

Preparing the banana boat: Cut a banana into two in a large piece of foil. Add chocolate, marshmellows, & caramel sauce. Seal up foil into a nicely folded package & place in hot coals. Eat.

The next day we took a ~5 mile hike up to Buzzards Roost point. It was still pretty foggy out, but thankfully we were below the fog level, so we could see out a ways.

I forget exactly what was going on here, but Shannon is our master of poses

[Edit: This would be Shannon's ninja pose, obviously.  Look at that black ninja outfit! -Glennis]

Later that afternoon, we took a drive down to Julia Pfeiffer State Beach to see the somewhat famous waterfall onto the beach. Someone had actually owned a house right on the side of the hill there 60 years ago with access to this beach, and had donated it to the state park to be closed off so everyone could enjoy the unspoilt view.

The largest redwood in the park, the Colonial Tree

Its huuuuuuuuuuge!

Playing around on the pedestrian bridge over the raging river

Shannon judging the age of a felled tree

Since it is incredibly bad form to carve your name into trees/benches/fences, we instead carved our names into pieces of firewood.

Monterey

We departed Morro Bay for our next stop... Monterey Bay. Our travel route was the historic and scenic Highway one up the stunning pacific coast. Unfortunately it was too foggy to truly appreciate the natural scenery that we all see in the famous pictures, but we at least made the effort. We did make a pit-stop at the Salmon Creek falls along the way and had an nice little picnic. It was a little too cold for us to take a jump in, although it would have been quite inviting on a warmer day.



We continued up the coast to Carmel where we stayed with my friend Kelsy and her family. We took a dip in the hot-tub to relieve Glennis's sore old-lady back from our hikes in Morro Bay and then broke bread with the Avalos-Feehan Clan.

The following day we took a trip out to the famous Monterey Bay aquarium and took in the special sea horse exhibit as well as their permanent exhibits. Kelsy gave us a bit of a behind the scenes tour at Stanford's Hopkin's research center right next door to the aquarium where they have holding tanks for some of the fish not on exhibit. Afterwards, Glennis and Greg got to see the popular Del Monte Center, commonly known as the DMC - the ultimate hang out from my Catalina days. We also stopped by the school so they could see where I spent some of my formative years. We took the scenic route back to the house along 17-mile drive through pebble beach and then along the coast in Carmel-by-sea. It was still foggy but we did see the famous golf-courses and the cypreses.

That is no plant- that is the leafy Sea Dragon!

To end the night we went back to the DMC to take in a showing of the new Star Trek movie. I am a bit Star Trek ignorant, but Glennis assured me that the movie appealed to all audiences. Turns out the movie was pretty entertaining, and by the end of the trip I will no longer get confused between Star Wars and Star Trek.

The following morning we took off for Big Sur for our next adventure in the wilderness....

Morro Bay, Part Two

First off, I would like to apologize to everyone for the fact that we have fallen behind in our postings. For the last few places we have been, we have not had ready access to wireless or other internet, so we took an unintentional break from our blog. But no worries, we will fill you in on all our recent adventures, and I am starting off with the rest of our stay in Morro Bay.

Because we took it relatively easy during our day at Montana de Oro, I was feeling a little better and we decided to hike Bishop's Peak, which is one of the volcanic formations in the area known as the seven sisters.

The view of Bishop's peak from the road.

We hiked up in about an hour, then enjoyed a picnic lunch courtesy of my Oma with a view of San Luis Obispo.  

We made it to the top!!!

Views from the top of Bishop's peak.

On the way down.

After reading/relaxing/taking in the sights for an hour or so, we hiked down and made it back to my Oma and Opa's with just enough time to shower before we all headed off to McClintock's.  My grandparents treated us to dinner at this cowboy-themed steak restaurant, and since Shannon's birthday hadn't been that long ago, we told the waiter that we were celebrating her big day.  So, Shannon was 'serenaded' by the waitstaff, had her picture taken to memorialize the event, and had a large ice cream and brownie concoction.

Relaxing after McClintock's - Greg is curled up on the couch, Shannon is finally getting some cuddle time with Rod.

Day Not-counting-anymore: Off for real this time!

We are officially off on our journey, with no return to Redondo Beach until mid June. Hope we have everything we wanted to bring in the car...

Our travels around California take 1 of 3 forms: we'll either be camping, staying with people we know, or for a couple nights, staying in a hotel, with a big focus on doing outdoor activities & relaxing. First stop: Morro Bay, staying a couple days with Glennis's Oma. The first couple days we took pretty light because 1) we wanted to, 2) Glennis came down with a bit of a cold. We drove out Sunday from Los Angeles to Morro Bay and the three of us almost immediately crashed for a good two hour nap. We woke up in time to take a short walk outside on the boardwalk through the Elfin Forest, where we learned about sticky monkey flowers, poison oak, & what the area would have looked like through the eyes of a young Native American girl. We ended out the night with the movie Star Wars.

The next day in Morro Bay, we went on a long-ish hike in Montaña de Oro State Park along the bluffs. It was an interesting location, since the land the hike we went on was actually property of an electric company & had the whole release of liability form we had to sign. As we found out later, we were actually walking through land surrounding a nuclear power plant. The hike was still beautiful though.

California state flower, the Golden Poppy

The Adventurer pose
Glennis, the rebel child
Do not mess around when near nuclear power plants

Stopping to smell the flowers
The end of the trail! Now just 4 miles back...

Days 2 and 3: Joshua Tree

We decided we needed a camping dress rehearsal before we embarked on our big trip, so we planned an overnight stay in Joshua Tree National Park.  We packed up the essentials and took off for Redlands, where we met Rachel and had lunch, and then the four of us departed for Joshua Tree.  After a little chat with the ranger, we decided to camp at Jumbo Rock, see the sunset at Hidden Valley, and take a little jaunt outside the park at night to see a star party.  He also suggested climbing Ryan Mountain for sunrise, but the sun rises pretty early....

Group shot with some Jumbo Rocks!

Glennis is like spiderman!

Greg is like a monkey!

As the pictures show, the Jumbo Rocks camp ground is, in fact, full of Jumbo Rocks.  We spent some of the afternoon scampering about the rocks and seeing the sights, and then set up our camp site.  We pitched our tent and cooked our first campfire dinner.  We had salad from a ba, delicious sausages, and a celebratory bottle of wine.  

Afterwards, we made our way to the Hidden Valley for a sunset walk which was quite nice.

Sunset pose!

  

To end the evening we went in search of the star party that the ranger told us about.  After a minor detour, we figured out where it was, and arrived just as the sky was starting to clear so we could get a look at the stars.  Unfortunately, they had some technical difficulties, but we did get a look at Saturn through a telescope and saw its rings and everything.  Then we were surprised with a half hours talk on light pollution: you should make sure to turn your lights off at night, so we can recover the night sky...

After the star party, we were ready to hit the hay and climbed into our sleeping bags.  

An alarm did go off around 5am in case we were up for the sunrise walk, which we weren't.  Some of us don't even remember hearing it...  In any case, we did get up later, had our campfire breakfast and went for a day time hike up Ryan Mountain and got some good views of the park.  

Atop Ryan Mountain!

We returned to the camp site for lunch, and then, despite the slothful effects of the hot sun, we packed up the car and hit the road... back to Greg's house.

Day One: Disneyland, California Adventure, and Line Dancing (oh my)

For the first day of our 'roadtrip' we wanted to visit Disneyland, and it didn't hurt that Greg has some Disney connections so we were able to get tickets to both theme parks for free. Using Greg's expert knowledge of the theme park layout and how to work the fast pass system, we were able to experience all of the rides we wanted (or didn't want, but I'll get to that in a moment): Pirates of the Caribbean, Splash Mountain, Space Mountain, Star Tours, Thunder Mountain, Astro Blasters, Matterhorn, Tower of Terror, Soarin' over California, Swings, California Screamin', Indiana Jones, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, the teacups, the Finding Nemo ride, It's a Small World, and Space Mountain again. [Just for the record, I was not crazy about the idea of going on Tower of Terror, but I did it anyway. Not my favorite part of the day...] But overall, it was a great day at Disneyland/CA Adventure.

On the teacup ride.

On the Finding Nemo ride.That would be omegas that Shannon and I are making - for angular momentum. Taken on Space Mountain.

After a very satisfying but late dinner at Chipotle, we drove over to meet some of Greg's friends at a line dancing place. Despite our tired feet, Shannon and I ventured out onto the dancefloor and were able to pick up a few of the line dances, though many of them were surprisingly complicated. Greg did in fact attempt one line dance...