Big Sur is beautiful - especially when it's 84 degrees out

What a wonderful weekend!! With beautiful, sunny skies and temperatures in the 70's-80's, there was much outdoor enjoyment to be had.

Saturday I got started on the garden. Barely. My plot was all full of weeds, and hadn't been touched in months, so I spent my time just digging the weeds into the dirt, and loosening up the soil. It was fabulous to be outdoors on such a beautiful day, with the smell of the earth and the trees...The garden itself is very nice and peaceful and well cared for. I took some before and after pictures of my plot and it looks much better now. This Saturday I will buy some compost, lay down some newspaper to smother the weeds and then cover it with the compost to promote decomposition and add some organic matter to the soil. It looks like really really nice dirt, though - fluffy and more sandy than clay. In Portland, we had pure clay and in some places, hard pan, which is just a fancy way of saying that the dirt has gotten so compacted and hardened that it is like concrete. Not easy to plant in. So this SF dirt should be delightful. Also, I checked out a book on gardening in the Bay Area, and it turns out that here you can basically grow things year round, because we don't have frosts. So I can start planting in February! Cool. The only downside to our climate here is that it doesn't get warm enough, long enough, for crops like tomatoes and peppers. Boo. Oh well, I guess we'll be eating fresh lettuce and broccoli, instead of corn and melons. Assuming, of course, that anything grows at all - I'm not known for my green thumb, or my attention span...

Sunday was the best day. I got a discount on a car rental from Enterprise so Neil and I headed down South to Big Sur for the day. What a perfect way to spend a day! We saw beautiful vistas, bountiful wildlife and 84 degrees!

We took Hwy 101 South to Salinas to bypass Hwy1, which we already saw on our last day trip, and joined Hwy 1 at Monterey/Carmel. (where we ended our last trip). We stopped at the first turnout - not realizing that there are turnouts every 10 feet along this strip of the highway.

Another couple also at the turnout pointed out a Sea otter down in a big bed of kelp. He was just floating on his back, taking a nap I think, with his little paws folded nicely on his belly. I took a picture of him, but then it was so far away, I accidentally erased it later cause I couldn't figure out why I would take a picture of a bed of kelp...

When we got back into the car, we noticed the temperature gauge said 80 degrees. We're from Oregon, and it is NEVER 80 degrees on January 11th, so we took a picture to commemorate the moment:


We continued our drive, stopping at almost every turnout for pictures. It was just so beautiful!!

Because we had driven so far (about 2 miles) along the coast, we decided it was time for a break, and stopped to walk down on a great beach that we spotted...The waves were large and an amazing shade of blue/green and it was warm enough to take off socks and shoes and wade in the water. It wasn't really cold.

So now we have two beaches to return to. We probably could have spent all day here, but there were grey whales to see, so we headed onwards. This is the migratory period for the grey whales heading south to Mexico and Neil was super-excited to see a whale. In February, they head back north with their babies, so they're closer to shore then, but we had high hopes of spotting one or two. At our next turnout, we saw our first spout of the day. It was so much fun! Then we started seeing spouts EVERYWHERE! There were so many whales out - I don't know if we just hit a good day, or what, but if you just stared blankly out at the ocean, you would spot one after another, after another. Neil had wisely thought to bring our binoculars with us, and if happened to be looking at the place where there was a spout, you could also see the whales backs and tails. So cool... At the first turnout we stopped at, the water was very choppy, so I didn't get a good chance to take any pictures...

We drove on a little further, and Neil pointed out some birds that were circling up ahead. I thought they were just hawks at first, but as we got closer, they kept getting bigger and bigger and then we noticed the crowd of people who had pulled over to look at them, and realized that they were condors. And so, of course, we had to pull over and get a better view. Which was simple, because they were flying right overhead. And not just one time, but over and over again. And not just one of them, but 11-12 of them. It's almost like they were posing for the pictures. They were SO big and so cool. Neil later said he could have stood there and watched them all day.

One landed on a rock below us, and up close, they are not very attractive birds. They look a little bit like vultures. Close up picture from the internet:


They are much prettier when they are flying around...

I finally tore Neil away from the birds and we headed out again, only to run into another bird: a pelican sleeping on the side of the road. Of course we had to get out and walk up to the pelican to snap a picture. I thought he would get scared and fly away, but he was totally blase. Didn't bat an eye, even when the flash went off:

Again, almost like he was posing for us. Did the wildlife know we were coming?

Some more beautiful scenery:

Then we hit the whale jackpot. We came to a turnout and immediately started seeing multiple spouts together, in numerous places. There must have been a whole pod traveling together. I think I once saw 6-7 or seven spouts at the same time. And backs and tails - the whole works. Neil and I sat there sharing the binoculars for a long time.

And the ocean had calmed, so I got some pictures of the spouts as well.






So, that was about the end of the wildlife spotting, and we just continued our lovely drive with the windows down and the breeze in our hair, and pulled off to one last turnout to enjoy the sunset...

The sun set, and we headed back to Hwy 101, and the trek back to San Francisco. We realized that we had come much farther than we thought when we saw the sign saying 170 miles to San Francisco. The return trip was long, dark and boring - but worth it for the day that we had.

Back in San Francisco, we headed to Neil's friend Cathy's house for "family dinner". She and her roomates prepare a home-cooked theme meal for anyone who wants to come every Sunday. This weeks theme was Korean. Unfortunately, we missed the dinner. But we arrived in time for cake! And some nice time with friends to cap off a wonderful day!

I get Martin Luther King Jr. day off as a holiday (I love my employer) and so we might be planning a trip to Napa/Sonoma. Can't wait!!