Meandering Adventure Day - Buellton to Fresno

On Thursday we packed up and left the Hartenburg’s house in Buellton and began the trek to Fresno because the main purpose of this trip was that I was scheduled to be an examiner for a C3, B, and A Pony Club certification taking place at the Fresno County Horse Park in Fresno, CA. We ended up having the whole day for adventuring our way through the state because the other examiner’s flight had been rescheduled for the following day and we took advantage of it.

Our first stop was to Pismo Beach, a beach town just south of San Luis Obispo, known for its good surfing and for being a stop for migrating Monarch butterflies. We enjoyed walking through the coastal town and then out onto the 1,000+ foot wooden pier where we watched a dozen or so surfers catching waves.

When we were at Moonstone Beach the previous day Scott had gotten a recommendation to visit Piedras Blancas Rookery. It is a beach located in the southern range of Big Sur where you can observe elephant seals year-round. We were amazed to see hundreds of elephant seals when we got there and enjoyed watching them lounge around in the sand and learning about them from the docents that patrolled the crowds. Evidently this beach in particular is attractive to the huge sea mammals because of the kelp forest that protects them from Great White sharks. At this time of year we were seeing only juvenile elephant seals (still unbelievably huge) as they hung out on the beach for their “catastrophic molt.” (Fun fact: Young elephant seals who have been weaned and are nearly ready to take to the water to begin hunting on their own are sometimes called “superweaners.”) Scott immediately noticed the electronic and telecommunication equipment on the observation deck and a docent told us that it was for the live-cam for observing the seals. Here is a link: http://elephantseal.org/live-view/

Our plan for the day had originally been to meander our way up Highway 1 that parallels the coast and go as far as Big Sur or Monterey, but we discovered that a rock slide had closed about 40 miles of the highway above Ragged Point. The elephant seal docent that we had chatted with told us about a cute restaurant at Ragged Point so off we went.

We were thrilled to discover dramatic views of the Pacific and the cliffs of the Santa Lucia mountain range from the Ragged Point Inn’s restaurant. The inn and restaurant were perched high up on a cliff right at the water’s edge and the waves that we got to watch were stunning in their size and power. Being from the east coast, and being accustomed to the somewhat tame and soothing waves of the Atlantic, the Pacific awes me with its mighty intensity and herculean force. We spent time after lunch exploring the grounds of the inn and taking pictures from the incredible vantage point. We decided that our next stop would be somewhere nearby with trees capable of hanging our hammocks where we could enjoy these views.

Scott is always scanning his surroundings for places to hammock and he scouted out what might be the very best hammocking location to date- a scenic overlook right on the land’s edge and the Pacific ocean 100 feet below us. We decided that there was no better place to witness another Pacific sunset and we set the hammocks up, lounging and napping and enjoying the sound of the waves crashing below us. We were treated to another dramatic sunset light show and when it was done we packed up the hammocks and began our journey inland to Fresno, content with another wonderful day of adventuring.