Pinnacles to Pismo!

Pinnacles to Pismo!

 

October 3 - 21, 2021

 

Pinnacles National Park is a small, little used treasure!  I’m hesitant to advertise too much about this gem, as part of its appeal was the small crowds and secluded experience!  The stunning rock formations in this park are the result of volcanoes and earthquakes, with a measure of erosion thrown in!

 

While we were in the park, we hiked the Moses Spring Trail, which started out along a shady path at the base of the valley.  Gradually, rocky formations began coming into view, eventually leading us to a talus cave!  Bear Gulch Cave was formed when boulders created a roof over the narrow canyon!  Normally caves are not in my wheelhouse. Fortunately, this cave had enough ambient lighting filtering in from where rocks kindly left small gaps, keeping my claustrophobia from developing into a panic attack!  The CCC was actively at work here in the 1930’s and built a series of narrow, winding staircases that guided us through the cave.  Once we emerged, there was another narrow staircase built into the side of the canyon wall, taking you the final few yards to the canyon’s rim.  

 

I couldn’t believe the view once we reached the rim!  There the CCC also worked a little magic when they built the Bear Gulch Reservoir in 1935.  It was built to prevent flooding downstream, but primarily for its aesthetic value.  The sky was lightly filled with smoke from a wildfire, but still the view was breathtaking!  I can only imagine what this must look like with a clear, blue sky!

 

We opted to make a loop out of our hike and take the Rim Trail back.  This trail was equally amazing, offering spectacular views of the pinnacles!

 

Our second day in Pinnacles was another amazing day!  Kathy (Dick’s cousin’s wife) brought a couple of friends (Jesse and Mary) and drove from Gilroy to spend the day with us.  Kathy had always wanted to visit Pinnacles and we were thrilled to provide her the opportunity!  It was so great to discover this beautiful park together!  This time we hiked the Old Pinnacle Trail.  The trail itself was mostly flat, following along the base of the canyon.  Along the way you see the towering rock formations of Machete Ridge and the Balconies Cliffs.  After a couple of miles, the trail led us to Balconies Cave.  This cave was completely dark and we definitely needed a flashlight once we got 20-25 yards inside the cave entrance.  Besides being dark, this cave’s description was a bit too closed in for me, requiring you to crawl for a some of it.  Completely, NOT my thing!  We did venture inside the cave a bit, mainly for the experience and then turned around once the need for a flashlight arose.  It was time for lunch, which proved the perfect excuse for this claustrophobic gal to get the heck out of the cave!  The bonus for the day was getting to know a couple more of Kathy’s friends!  Jesse and Mary also “glamp”, so we had a lot in common and the conversations flowed nonstop.  Turns out, Mary had a total knee replacement only a year ago.  From watching her hike, you would never know it.  Pretty darn impressive!

During our stay at Pinnacles, we camped 30 minutes outside of the park at San Benito RV and Camping Resort.  The campground was very nice, offering a swimming pool, pickleball, wild pigs, and a plethora of mule deer!  We even got in a game of hopscotch!  It must be only girls that play hopscotch as children as Dick had never played this game in his life!  Turns out he is a natural at it and soundly defeated me.  I’ll get him next time!  

Although we really enjoyed our stay at San Benito, if I had it to do over, I’d stay at the national park.  The main reason I’d stay at the park is to increase the odds of seeing the California condors!  Apparently, a flock of these giants roost in the area behind the park campground!  Although the California condors have made a comeback, they became extinct in the wild in 1987 when the few remaining wild condors were captured and taken to the San Diego Wild Animal Park and the Los Angeles Zoo for captive breeding programs.  Their reintroduction to the wild has been successful; however, they remain as one of the world’s rarest species.  I’ll definitely stay in the park next time around! 

 

Following our adventures in Pinnacles National Park, we headed back to the ocean!  If you have ever heard of Pismo Beach, there’s a good possibility it’s from the Bugs Bunny cartoon: “Well, here we are in Pismo Beach, with all the clams we can eat!”   Time to go find out about all those clams!  For the first bit of our time in the area we stayed at Pismo State Beach, located only a couple of blocks from the Pacific shoreline!  You can be sure we made a beeline for the sunset views!

Pismo Beach is one of the few beaches that you can legally drive on.  I have to admit, it threw me for a loop when we arrived at the beach and had to watch for traffic!  People let air out of their tires to give them traction in the sand and drive up and down the beach.  We saw several RVs also being hauled along the shoreline.  Kind of strange, but the locals take a lot of pride in the fact that they can still do this.  There is a movement afoot to outlaw it (to protect the clams and the other wildlife) and it brings a lot of controversy with it.

                                           

Our campground was sandwiched between a lagoon and the Pacific.  Pretty cool!  Guiton Trail encircles the lagoon and the trailhead is conveniently right in the park, giving easy access to a bird watcher’s paradise.  Many species are in migration and the birders were out in full force!  Dick and I saw cormorants, coots, mallards… but the experts were busy identifying so very many more!  Also located in the campground was a trail that led us through the sand dunes to the beach!  There we saw other signs of migration.  The humpback whales are running and if you’re patient, before long you will see their spout, followed by their surface.   Pretty cool!

 

On our way to the Pismo Beach Pier Plaza, we found Old West Cinnamon Rolls.  You can’t miss it when walking down the street.  The aroma wafting through the air is irresistible!  We found ourselves victim of the aroma on several visits to the downtown area.   A variety of cute shops in the area provided us the opportunity to make a little more progress on Christmas shopping for the grandkids.  

 

The Monarch Butterfly Grove is only a mile walk from the pier, so we strolled down to see if we could find any monarchs.  The monarchs love the eucalyptus trees in this grove and migrate here every year from Canada and the northern Pacific coastal area.  They make their big appearance from November through February, when they mate and then begin their journey back north.  This was another location we found ourselves drawn to several times throughout our stay.  It was amazing how much their presence grew during the few weeks we were here.  I can only imagine how amazing this must look during the peak of their residence in Pismo Beach!

 

We decided to walk along the shoreline on our way back after visiting the grove and came across students from Cal Poly digging clams!  The students had a wagon that looked like a giant sieve.  They shoveled in sand until the wagon was heaping and then wheeled the wagon into the ocean. There, they dumped buckets of water over the sand, washing away the sand and leaving the clams.  Next, they tagged the clams with QR codes in order to research why the clams don’t seem to be maturing and growing in numbers.  Finally, they buried the clams back into the sand!

 

Back in Bugs Bunny’s days, this was the clamming capital of the world.  In the 1940’s, they would plow the beach, harvesting tons of clams.  Today there is a limit of 10 clams per day, provided you have a license.  The legal size for a “keeper” is 4.5 inches.  No one has found a clam that meets the legal keeper size since 1993.  It will be interesting to see what the Cal Poly students come up with from the research they are endeavoring!

Our timing was perfect for being in Pismo Beach as October is when they have their annual Clam Festival!  They certainly don’t get their clams locally, however!  The highlights of the festival for us included watching the parade and participating in the Clam Chowder Cook-off.  Local restaurants compete with each other for the title of “Best Clam Chowder”.  It was not only fun but also very filling to sample the various versions of clam chowder and place our votes.  Splash won our vote and also won the contest!

 

Pismo Beach itself is filled with fun and games.  We couldn’t resist playing on the slides at the beach!  The surfers were also another big attraction.  It was entertaining watching them patiently wait for the right wave to hop a ride on.  Beach Boys songs certainly got stuck in my head: “Let’s go surfing now, everybody’s learning how!”  I took a pass on the variety of surf lessons you could take and kept myself limited to the enjoyment of watching.

We also came across a docent-led hike that took us through the sand dunes to the Monarch Grove and along the shoreline.  Our docent was delightful and very good at identifying both native and invasive vegetation, birds and whales!  We learned that back in the early 1900’s, California planted iceplant along the sand dunes to help prevent the sand from blowing where they didn’t want it.  Iceplant is a low growing succulent with cheery flowers of pink, yellow, and fuchsia.  I thought it to be quite an attractive plant and had been noticing it, literally, everywhere.  Apparently, this is the problem with it!  Turns out it is a very invasive species and every so often, California goes all out in an effort to rid itself of the nuisance.  Oregon did the same thing, only with a European grass!  

After our first week in Pismo Beach, we moved only a few miles to Oceano, where we stayed at Pacific Dunes RV Ranch.  This RV resort was also located right on the sand dunes; however, it was a bit longer of a walk through the dunes to get to the Pacific.  We ventured out into the dunes several times, once making it to the shoreline.  It was not quite a mile to get there, but what a great workout hiking up and down the dunes gives you!  Along the way, I found a cell phone and felt some sort of responsibility to at least attempt to find the owner.  After a kind soul found my wallet when we were in Florence, I felt this was my chance to return the favor.  It’s a bit of a long story, but after some brainstorming, we did find the owner and got the phone returned to her!

We did make a number of day trips to some of the other towns in the area.  One of these trips involved riding our bikes on the Bob Jones Trail in Avila Beach!  This was a delightful trail that began on the edge of Avila and ended at the beach!  Along the way, we rode through the pretty countryside, a golf course and eventually the beach!  After exploring Avila and picking up lunch at Mr. Rick’s, we rode the trail back to the truck and drove to Port San Luis.  There we again did a little exploring and this time treated ourselves to a little ice cream.  Just to balance out the day a bit nutritionally, we stopped at the Avila Valley Barn for some fresh produce on our way back “home”.

On another day, we drove to Port San Luis to join a group to hike to the Point San Luis Lighthouse on the San Luis Pecho Coast Trail.  This is docent-led due to the trail being located on PG&E land, specifically, the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant (scheduled to be decommissioned in a couple of years).  On this hike, we learned a ton about the native vegetation and some interesting geology informations. The lighthouse was really beautiful and we actually got to tour it!  Every other lighthouse we have visited has been closed for tour groups due to Covid.  Apparently, they only recently reopened for tours.  This is a good sign!

 

Yet another trip was to Morro Bay.  You can easily identify Morrow Bay by its landmark rock!  It very much reminds me of the Prudential rock!  This HUGE rock is actually a volcanic plug, which is something I’ve never heard of before.  It was lava that cooled off and solidified inside the tube of a volcano.  They said the volcano had long ago eroded away, leaving behind the plug.  Super strange!

 

Morrow Bay’s beach was unique not only because of the rock, but here we enjoyed watching a group of sea otters playing in the bay.  Further along the bay we found more otters.  One was a mother with her pup alongside her.  Although they are an aggressive species, they sure are super cute to watch!

We absolutely love this lifestyle and are seeing and learning so very much, but there are moments that make this a difficult lifestyle.  One such thing was when Maggie and Luke’s daughter had her first birthday. I would have loved to be there for her celebration!  Fortunately, we were able to attend Norah’s birthday party via Zoom. Watching her realize how delicious cake is was precious!  There is a good reason it’s called a “smash cake”!  

 

One day we drove to Cayucos and walked around their downtown.  We found a quaint place for lunch (Schooner’s) that had seating offering a stunning overlook of the ocean.  After lunch, we walked to the end of their pier where we observed whales in their migration south for the winter.  We also walked along the shoreline and found some tide pools, as it was low tide.  I couldn’t resist purchasing some brown butter cookies from a local bakery before we headed back home.

 

Our first Sunday in the area took us to San Luis Obispo, or SLO as the locals call it.  Located in SLO is the Mission San Luis Obispo!  That makes 3 of the 21 missions we’ve been able to attend mass at!  After mass, we took a tour of the mission and learned a bit about its history.  Pretty interesting!  

 

Just to keep life real, I’m going to tattle a little on myself and admit I managed to inadvertently lock my keys in the truck while we were visiting SLO.  Although it took a while, just as the sun was setting and the temperature dropping, a tow truck service (College Towing) came and saved the day!  After waiting several hours, minutes after his arrival, Devon had the truck’s door unlocked! 

 

While we were waiting, we did do a little exploring of SLO.  SLO is home to Cal Poly, so it is very much a vibrant, college town!  It’s also home to Bubble Gum Alley!  There are some things just way too great to resist!  There was a candy shop only a block away who was more than happy to sell me some bubble gum to add to the array!

 

Yet another day took us to Shell Beach (just on the outskirts of Pismo Beach).  This seemed to be a “pinch me” place to live!  Homes are located on the top of a cliff overlooking the Pacific.  As much as we enjoyed the scenery, these homes must have a fantastic view, as well as mortgage payment!  We found a staircase from the top of the cliff down to the beach where we did a final tide pool walk.  As we were walking the tide pools, it was a balancing act in so may ways.  The obvious one was physically, trying to keep myself from slipping off the rocks into the water!  The other balancing act was trying to figure out what to watch!  Besides the tide pools, there was the splendor of the ocean and cliffs, in addition to the surfers who were catching the waves and taking great rides!  Man, what a life California has to offer!

On the other hand, the wild fires in California gives on a bit of a pause on the challenges California has.  Although we were never in any danger, we did see smoke coming from the area near the shoreline, less than a mile from our campground.  The brush fire started out about 2:30 in the afternoon and they had it extinguished about the time of sunset.  It was interesting watching the helicopter making trips back and forth, dumping loads of water on the fire. It was calming to know the Pacific was on one side of the fire and the sand dunes on the other. I can’t imagine what it must be like for people who are watching fires much larger than this one from their non-mobile homes!  It must be absolutely terrorizing  

 

Our final outing was to the surrounding community of Arroyo Grande.  Here we went to their farmer’s market and picked up amazing fresh veggies.  When we were visiting Dick’s cousin, Jim and his wife, Jim told us how much California is the “bread basket of America”.  As I’ve always claimed Iowa and other Midwest states to be the “bread basket”, the longer we are in California, the more I understand what Jim was talking about.  While I have yet to see a corn or soybean field, everywhere we go, there are fields of vegetables!  It’s wonderful to go and purchase these locally grown fresh vegetables in the middle of October!  

 

We had read about Arroyo Grande and their and swinging bridge, so of course we had to take that in while we were in the neighborhood.  The bridge crosses a small (this time of year) stream and was built in 1905 by a man who wanted to connect his property.  Originally this bridge had no sides!  I’m assuming this guy’s balance was a lot better than mine!  I’d have gone for a swim rather than crossing this bridge if it didn’t have sides.  Either way, I was going to end up in the water!

 

We began our stay in Pismo Beach with a sunset over the Pacific and we figured we should end it in a similar fashion.  Just to mix it up a bit, we hiked to a high point in the dunes, where we had a stunning view of the sunset!  We had such a delightful time here and as typical, we are leaving things left our "to do" list for the next time we visit!    Next stop:  Santa Barbara!