Kirk Creek Campground at Big Sur

Kirk  Creek Campground on Highway 1 near Big Sur

The  drive on Highway 1 is a 100 mile event with  thrilling 100 foot drop-offs down to the ocean.  This is the third time we have made this drive and I personally would like to retire from this activity while I am still alive!  Pete seems to be fearless and thinks I am a wimp! 


We stopped at Ragged Point for lunch and a little walk overlooking the ocean.  Beautiful to take in while one has both feet on the ground!

Kirk Creek campground is extremely  popular and needs to be  booked exactly at 8am 6 months before you want to arrive.  It is spectacular and after 3 years of trying, Pete was able to get the best site overlooking the ocean.  We stayed there a week hiking, and enjoying the scenery.

Highway 1 is subject to rock and mud slides and seems to be closed yearly at one time or another.
The weather was just perfect for our week there!  Met a lot of wonderful people!

Campsite flowers!

Gifted raccoons are also having a great time at Kirk Creek campground.  They have managed to open car doors to get food!  If a car window in rolled down a little, mamma raccoon sends the babies in through the window to bring out food!  One man told us a raccoon opened 4 zippers to get into his tent!  So...we locked our doors!


Rabbits were everywhere!  They were all small size but happily chomping away.  Cute!

View from our campsite # 22

We hiked down to the beach which has very large rocks,and tide pools.  Pete ventured out and found 16 Blue Sea Anemones.  It is a neat place!

We also hiked up the mountain across the highway and the view was great.  My new hip and I made it about 1/2 mile while Pete and Bailey went about a mile.  Pete did this about 7 times just for the exercise! 

Our RV is at the top under the large tree!  View from the trail

Pete was also a great camper making ham and eggs in the morning and campfires at night!

Very Happy Memories with beautiful sunsets at our campsite # 22.  This will probably be our last camping on this trip and we are so fortunate to have it end in such a beautiful place!

Monterrey Cannery Row Area

We love this restaurant in Cannery Row--ate here two years ago!  Love the bird on top of the statue in the square on Cannery Row!

We were told there was a beach that was a great place to look for "glass rocks" in Monterrey.

We were instructed to follow the trail behind the Costco, go under the highway and go left at the "big rock"!  We wandered around and finally found someone who knew where to go.  They told us we weren't going to find much today with tide and winter season so she pulled out a plastic bag with the results of their efforts and gave them to us for our grand children. 

Glass rocks are old broken glass bottles from an old dump site that have been smoothed out by years of wave action.

Here are what they found this day. 

Glass rocks

On the way to the beach we walked over these beautiful sand dunes and enjoyed the parasailing!

 

Joshua Tree National Park, Morro Bay, Montana de Oro

Joshua Tree National Park

We have been here twice before and love the camp sites at Jumbo Rocks Campground.  Pete got reservations (site 92 is great) for three nights.  We usually hike around in short sleeves but this year there were snow flakes with howling wind with gusts that rocked the RV and we had to dress as though going snow skiing!  Cold and 40 mph wind gusts which made it feel we were going "take flight" while hiking!  Day 3 was pleasant and able to hike and climb these amazing rock formations.

Dark sky and windy with snow flakes!  Not what we hoped!

This is a Joshua Tree hugging jumbo rocks!

Sunny skies but still windy

 

Lots of "balanced rocks" in this park!  That spherical rock is about 20 feet in diameter!
 

Morro Bay

We are off to Morro Bay State Park driving to avoid the terrible traffic near LA.  Way to go and 8 hours later at the lovely campground right across from the ocean. 

Morro Bay State Park

Hiking trails right from the camp ground were uphill both ways with great views!  There is a marina across from the campground and we are right next to a golf course.  Reservations made ahead.  Talked to many hikers and campers--fun to compare notes.  We chose not to get electricity and that was fine since we could run our generator as needed and the solar panels are a big help.  We watch movies or TV shows on our Direct TV DVR thanks to our solar panels!  It's perfect!  We have cellular here so texting and emailing away before we leave for Big Sur which didn't have it 2 years ago.  We'll be off the grid but glad we have our In Reach with satellite connection for emergencies thanks to Kris and Steve!

Morro Rock is the remains of a famous volcano and it is huge.  Very close to camp ground right by the Museum of Natural History.  It was wonderful and good for kids with nice movies about the sea otters.  We were able to drive to Morro Bay and drive out to the Rock to watch the sea otters feel lying on their backs with babies resting on their bellies!

Montana de Oro

Day two was spent checking out the campground there  (we like Morro Bay more) and hiking the Coon Creek Trail.  This was recommended to us by a very fit looking young State park employee as "a beautiful trail at the very end of the road along Montana de Oro that is easy, flat with a few ups and downs".  When will  ever learn not to listen to anyone under 60 when describing trail difficulty!

Coon Creek Trail

It was hardly ever flat--made it for a mile and then decided to save ourselves!

The trail along the cliffs of Montana de Oro is just wonderful.  We have done this trail twice before and it never disappoints--and it really is flat!  Views are amazing!

 
Today is Valentine's Day so we thought we needed to have a picture together.  You may have noticed that we don't have many of these  The challenge is to find someone that we can out run in case he would take off with our phone.  The options are getting more restrictive all the time!! 

Poppies in bloom along the walkway

Elephant Seals 


There is a beach a little south of Hearst Castle where these huge seals give birth to their babies on the beach and the male seals strut their stuff trying to find a willing female!  The females are exhausted from seal-birth and nursing and do everything to avoid any attention from the males that are three times their size!

Indio, California

Indio

This is just about the perfect place to be during the gloomy, cold Ohio winter!  Our third time here and we are 3 for 3 with beautiful weather!  This time we are at the Wyndham for two weeks with a first floor unit which is very convenient for our walks with Bailey and sitting on our patio.


The temperature is between 72 and 80, sunny every day which requires us to be at the pool, patio or hot tub all day.  This place is on a golf course and so beautiful!  We only left for a mandatory trip to Costco to stock up on food so we are good!  About the most strenuous activity has been grilling 4 hamburgers on the outside grill.  Pete is in the exercise room everyday--forgot about that!

Sunday we went to a polo match at the Empire Polo Club.  It was such a great experience and # 2 on Trip Advisor!  There are several polo clubs and they all have their own field which is 6 times as large as a football field.  The VIP tickets ($30 each) we reserved several days ahead and we thought well worth the money.  Food available to buy but can't bring your own.   Matches at 12 and 2pm.  Your table is reserved for all day.  The grounds were immaculate and so beautiful with bridges, lakes, flowers and real grass as in golf course quality!. 

Some ladies were very dressed up and brought their dogs who were equally beautified!  Our shaded table was perfect and we could see the whole field while the announcer explained what was going on.  We had gotten on "YouTube" and learned a little about Polo before we got there so we knew not to call the mounts "horses"--they are ponies (even though they are often retired thoroughbred race horses)!  The matches are only on Sundays during the winter season.

Let the match begine!

There are 6 periods (called chukkers)of 7 minutes and 30 seconds each with 4 players on each team.  Each rider gets a new horse every period because it is so strenuous for these former Thoroughbred race horses.  Riders just slide from one horse to the next without touching the ground!  So that is 24 horses per team per match--this is an expensive sport!

During "half time" all the spectators (dogs and all) are invited onto the field, given a glass of champagne and we "stomped divots" back into the grass.  I'm not sure how effective the ladies high heels were but everyone joined in the fun!

The team with two girls on it won 12 to 4!  Such great fun and requires tremendous coordination!

Super Bowl was shown on two large screens and since almost everyone here is from Portland and Washington we had a lot of sad 49er fans but it was great fun!

Death of my Android phone.  We are on the famously expensive El Paseo Drive in Palm Springs at the iPhone store since my Android is gasping its last few breaths.  So glad Pete already has one and is pretty knowledgeable.  The sales person gave up trying to maintain eye contact with me after she soon realized I had no idea what she was talking about!  I did enjoy picking out the color!!


We went to the Fantasy Springs Casino which is 10 minutes
away for their lunch buffet which is always fun.  Problem is
that they allow smoking---so obnoxious and can't believe that is how all restaurants were as we were
growing up.  Nasty!