Today started out comfortably warm with clear skies so we went exploring. We had a quick breakfast then piled into Charlotte for a drive toward the coast. The route through Hecker Pass on CA-152 to Watsonville has sort of become a favorite for us with redwood patches on the east side of the hills and expansive views on the west. We moseyed through the pass and then headed down the hill to Moss Landing where we had spotted sea otters doing otter stuff a few days ago.
We arrived and were delighted to find the otters were right about where we found them previously and they were up to their delightful otter antics. The adult otters were idly floating on their backs. We think this is the position they take when napping. The adolescent otters were engaged in furious horseplay and roughhousing and are just a delight to watch. This species seems to have a very good life. Surrounding the otter clan was big herds of sea lions mostly sleeping on the sand and a tremendous variety of birds. All this wildlife was hanging out in the lagoon for cooling water for the Moss Landing power plant. There must be an abundance of food in this lagoon because predation seems to be the activity of the day.
After scoping out the otters for a while, we started north on CA-1 toward Pacifica near Frisco. I may have used faulty reasoning to select today as an exploration day on the coast because it is the day the government has decided is the day to celebrate the birthday of some long-dead presidents and almost everyone in the central portion of California elected to go the coast. Although the weather was absolutely beautiful, the traffic was horrible. In Santa Cruz, we ran into bumper-to-bumper traffic long before we entered the town limits. This terrible traffic continued until quite a ways outside Santa Cruz but it eventually thinned out and we continued north through some truly spectacular coastline to Half Moon Bay. Here the traffic again turned to doo-doo for a while but once we left town it again cleared out allowing progress without braking. All the little dirt turnouts at the multiple state parks along this route were filled with sun worshipers enjoying the magnificent weather and stunning coastline views.
Soon we arrived in Pacifica where we wanted to take a look at the San Francisco RV Resort which ended up being very unresort-like. The RVs in the resort were parked so close to each other that only air and victims of starvation could get between them. There may have been upgraded RV spots at the edge of the cliff overlooking the ocean in the past but California has had some El Nino weather this year and any clifftop spots are now cliff bottom spots, having fallen onto the beach through the pesky and inconvenient process of erosion. There are three fences installed at the brink in an attempt to keep the stupid from disappearing over the edge. From the resort parking lot I was able to get some photos of an adjacent property’s clifftop deck jutting out over the ocean unsupported by anything other than air and the deck’s ability to bend. We will not be staying here unless properly bribed.
From Pacifica we got onto I-280 south back to Morgan Hill TT, making a stop at the local Costco on the way. I think we spent more this trip to Costco than ever before maybe due to including $130 worth of booze in our grocery purchases.
Got a few pix if you click here