Southern California

March 22, 2023

We spent 4 nights in Los Angeles. We have never been to LA together and there were a few things that we wanted to see. Until you get there, I don’t think that you realize how spread out the area is.  It takes forever to get places and add the traffic to that. Although the traffic in Portland can be bad, add an additional 15 million people and you can begin to understand.

The Beach by our Campsite

LA Traffic

Camping Next to LAX

Our first night there, we drove a little ways south along the beach to Redondo Beach and had a very nice seafood dinner at a restaurant on the pier there. After dinner, we walked out on the pier and then watched the sunset over the ocean.

Our first major expedition was to the Getty Museum. Of course our GPS messed us up big time and took us up narrow streets in fancy neighborhoods to a dead end. Luckily relying on our phones, we finally arrived. You park in a parking structure at the bottom of the hill, and take a tram up to the museum. The complex  is amazing architecturally. There are 4 main museum buildings which house European art to about the 1900’s. We got an audio app which described the highlights of some of the artwork. It was very informative and the  art was so beautiful. There were furnished rooms which belonged to Louis XIV of France. There were beautiful gardens and views of LA and the building and setting, designed by Richard Meier, are stunning! We spent a very nice day there. We came home on surface road along the beach past Santa Monica, Venice and  Marina Del Rey missing all the freeway traffic.

Iris by Van Gogj

Azalea Maze

View of LA

Our campground, was right on the beach with a bike path running nearby that extends for 22.3 miles from Redondo Beach to Santa Monica Beach. We rode north along the beach, about 12 miles total, and around Marina Del Rey. The path was very nice until we had to ride a ways on a busy road to get back to the beach after the marina. In the afternoon we rode our bikes south to about Manhattan Beach probably  another 6 miles. It was really nice to see the beach and ocean close up.

Beach Bike Path 

Marina Del Rey

The song says “ it never rains in Southern California” but it certainly does. We woke up to rain on Friday, so we decided to do something indoors. We went to The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. When we arrived the aquarium was mobbed with school kids. Mark thinks he counted at least 12 school buses. There were lots of other people who were also probably trying to escape the rain. It was so crowded that we decided to eat lunch at the cafe, hoping that many of the school groups would be gone when we finished and it was a bit less crowded after lunch. We saw all the exhibits which featured different areas of the Pacific Ocean. My favorite was the tropical reef exhibit. We also saw several short films ( mostly about climate change) and then a program with a video projector on a globe that presents real time weather and geological data about the earth. Unfortunately because of the heavy rain, we did not go out and see most of the outdoor exhibits. It was a very nice aquarium, only a bit too crowded.

On Saturday, March 11, we headed north to Santa Barbara.  When we were making campground reservations several  months ago; we could not get in any beach parks and ended up getting a spot at Cachuma Lake Recreation Area in the foothills above Santa Barbara; and we are very glad we ended up here! As we left Santa Barbara and headed up, it almost immediately got very foggy - we could barely see 5 feet in front of us.! It was quite scary because we weren’t sure how far we were exactly going but when we got to a summit and the clouds disappeared and we could see the beautiful rolling foothills. The recreation area is huge and we drove all around to investigate.

On Sunday, we were able to get seats on a boat tour of the lake. Right now, because of all the recent rain the lake is over 97% full. Just 2 months ago, the lake was and 25% full and 60 ft lower. The naturalist who led the boat ride said that everything looks so different with this much water in the lake. We saw lots of birds including Western Grebes, Clarks Grebes, white pelicans and the first cliff swallows of the season. We were very lucky to see Western Grebes do a mating dance.

White Pelicans

Western Grebe Mating Dance

In the afternoon, we drove to Solvang, a Danish community about 8 miles from our campground. We ate lunch at a Danish restaurant called Bit O’ Denmark and each had an open face sandwich platter that was excellent. After lunch, we walked down the downtown area and admired all the Danish architecture, and took home two danish pastries for breakfast. It was quite touristy, but done in a very classy way. On the way back to our campground, we stopped at Gainey Vineyards and did some wine tasting. Nice wine and lots of fun!

Solvang Street

Grainey Wine Tasting

Grainey Vineyards

Danish Windmill

On Monday, we drove back down to Santa Barbara to do some sightseeing. This time we had good visibility  and could see the lovely countryside. Our first stop was the Santa Barbara Mission. We saw the garden, cemetery, church and museum. It was very interesting. Next we went to the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden. This is the first botanical garden in the U.S. to feature only species native to California. The garden was really nice. We walked all over.  The meadow with California poppies was amazing.They also have a woodland area, Redwood area, canyon area, manzanita area, arroyo and desert areas. We really enjoyed the garden.

Misson Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara Botanical Garden Meadow

Tuesday, we got to witness first hand an “atmospheric river”. It rained from 2 am all day long. We got almost 3 inches of rain. On days like these, we look at each other and say how glad we are that we are not in a tent. Finally, after dark it let up a little and we managed a quick walk around our campground loop.

The next day we moved north to Morro Bay State Park.  The campground is just a short distance to the bay and after we set up camp we walked around to explore the area. The campground has many eucalyptus trees. These are non native plants and were brought here by Australian miners during the Gold Rush period who did not like seeing the bare hillsides. They are quite tall and blow a lot in the wind.

Eucalyptus Trees

 We did a lot of fun things in Morro Bay We walked the Marina Peninsula Trail several times with  lots of birds and wildflowers and the trail was different depending on the tides. We walked at Morro Rock twice. It is the last of a series of volcanic plugs extending from San Luis Obispo to the ocean. It is really huge. We were lucky to see a Peregrin falcon, lots of seals and sea otters and a burrowing owl on our walks there. One day we drove the short distance to Montana de Oro State Park and took a nice walk on the Bluff Trail. It was very lovely with the sea way down below. We also went to the El Morro Elfin Forest Natural Area in nearby Los Osos. It has a really nice boardwalk through the protected area and you get to see lots of cool pygmy oaks, many of then over 200 years old, and wildflowers.

Hiking at Morro Rock

Morro Rock

Marina Peninsula Trail

Montana de Oro State Bluff Trail

El Morro Elfin Forest

Pygmy Oaks

On Sunday, March 19, we moved north once once again. This was when we were supposed to camp at Big Sur, but the campground was closed for repairs and route 1 was closed for damages so we could not easily get there anyway. Instead we are staying for 3 nights at Hearst San Simeon State Park just a few miles south of Hearst Castle.

 On Monday, we went to Hearst Castle. It is quite amazing. In the morning we took the Great Rooms tour. At the Visitor Center, you board a bus that takes you up to the castle and estate. William Randolph Hearst hired Julia Morgan to be the architect and she and Hearst worked on the castle for 28 years. (Hearst changed his mind about the design a lot.)  There are 3 huge guest cottages, an indoor and outdoor pool, lovely gardens and a wonderful view in all directions plus the main castle. In the Grand Room Tour we saw these  plus the assembly room, the dining room, the billiard room and the movie theater. These are all very opulent rooms with artwork, antiques, and tapestries. Many of the ceilings were from homes in Europe that were taken apart, numbered and then but back together at the castle.  

After the tour we were bused back to the visitor center. We spent time visiting the museum and watching an IMAX film : Hearst Castle…Building the Dream which gave you a lot of information about William Randolph Hearst and the building of the castle. In the afternoon we took another tour of the Castle. This one toured the upstairs rooms. We saw lots of the bedrooms including Hearst’s bedroom and office and lots of the guest rooms. My favorite was the Celestial bedroom which was up in one of the castle towers. We also saw the two libraries and got a quick peak at the kitchen which was probably bigger than our whole house!  This is really an unbelievable place.

Assembly Room

A fireplace

Dining room

Library

Hearst's office and library

Celestial Bedroom

A ceiling

View of Hearst Castle from below

Front door to the castle

Outdoor swimming pool

Before we went back to the campground, we went 4 miles north to see the Piedras Blancas Northern Elephant Seal Rookery. We did not know what to expect - certainly not the hundreds of elephant seals that were “hauled up” on the beach. The entire colony of 25,000 elephant seals are never on the beach at the same time. They come to the beach to breed, molt, give birth and feed the pups for about 5 weeks. No one except the pups eat while on the beach. It was quite the sight to see! We also walked out on the pier at the Hearst Memorial State Beach. It was a great day.

Thank you for reading and all your comments. Please keep the coming. Heading north to wine country tomorrow. More to come!