Mid-Coast California – A Landing, a Bridge, a Morro and finally, dry weather.

14th Dec – 19th Dec 2021

Bodega Bay was granted some forgiveness as we awoke to a dry morning. After a shower we packed up and only to have our improved spirits mildly deflated again by discovering that one of Big Dave’s front indicators was not working. It seemed an easy fix of a replacement bulb, so we factored in a small detour to an autoparts store for our onward journey. This was in the delightfully named Petaluma. Unfortunately a new bulb did not remedy the problem and the fuse was fine. Then we noticed that his rear indicator was not working either. Luckily Tin Can, which plugs into Big Dave like a caravan or boat trailer does, did have a functioning rear indicator so we pushed on. Bizzarely, a day or so later it suddenly started working again. Huzzah! Then stopped again. Hmmff. An auto electrician was going to need consulting. We just woudn’t turn left until then. Simples!

Our onward journey took us through San Fransisco and beyond. We weren’t stopping here as we had visited before, but we opted to cross the Bay on the Golden Gate Bridge rather than the less scenic Oakland Bridge. This gave us the great view of the harbour, the city waterfront and Alcatraz Island, although, a bit like the worst view of Paris being from the Eiffel Tower – because you can’t see the Eiffel Tower – we did miss out on that iconic view of the bridge. It also happens quickly at 60 miles/hr! Over the bridge the road quickly ceases to be a highway and becomes an urban access road, so progress was slow as we wound our way through the south west city districts before re-joining the highway and onward to our next stop – Moss Landing.

Our road there took us through San José, as immortalised by the Dionne Warwick ditty ‘Do you know the way to San José’. I had no feelings about this city prior to our transit through it, but unfortunately our experience was pretty stressful. Firstly, the highway surface was awful. Tin Can shook so much that I was sure that every item of crockery and glassware would be shattered. That, and I was worried we might lose some teeth. Secondly, our Sat Nav, and Google Maps route was intent on routing us via a lovely new expressway ringroad that banned all vehicles over 4 tons. As you all know, we are 7 tons. We had a stressful half hour where we kept having to dive off the through-road into the belly of the city to find alternative routes. Surely this is counterproductive to urban congestion and pollution, having all the medium and large trucks using the normal city streets.

As Dionne warbled:

‘Do you know the way to San Jose? (Yes)
I’ve been away so long (and we’re not coming back, sorry)
I may go wrong and lose my way…’ (AND WHOSE FAULT IS THAT??)

Moss Landing is a seemingly small scrap of a coastal settlement in the mid coast of Monteray Bay dominated by a few big things.

1. A gas fueled power station with two massive stacks that dominate the skyline. Here they are developing a battery storage facility that will be the biggest in the world when finished.
2. The Elkhorn Slough, a massive salt water wetland area and wildlife habitat that is purported to be one of the top 10 bird spotting areas in the world.
3. The Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, a multi-campus research facility of California State University. Study of up to 4000 metre deep ocean depths is facilitated by the proximity of Monterey Canyon to this area. It is the largest undersea canyon on the west coast of the Americas and only an hour or 2 boat journey from the marina here.
4. The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. Here for the same reason as above. Both these facilities were made possible in large part by huge philanthropic support from the Hewlett and Packard family estates.
5. A lovely long state park beach.
6. Bizzarely it is home to the Shakespeare Society of America. A building stuffed full of more than 15,000 items of Bard memoribilia, relocated after the closure of the LA replica Globe Theatre. The chap manning the shop was very chatty and keen to show off all his treasures/junk. I don’t think he has many visitors at this time of year.
7. A tremendous fish market/restaurant called Phil’s which was voted by BBC Travel as one of the best beach fish restaurants in the world (not sure when this was, but the fading rossette is still proudly displayed at the entrance, and to be fair, it was very good.
8. The land south of here is the globe artichoke growing centre of the world. Weird.

We had a good two nights here.

Our route from Moss Landing to our next stop Morro Bay was planned to take us along the aforementioned iconic road, The Big Sur. Unfortunately all the recent heavy rain had caused more slips and it was shut again, a regular occurance over the past few years. Luckily we had checked this before heading that way and avoided having to do a turn-around. To be honest we were’t too disappointed to have to take the easier inland route. We had already seen a lot of beautiful but heavy going coastal roads. We passed through thousands of acres of artichoke growing land (mostly empty and ploughed at this time of year) and the crops changed abruptly to vineyards as we approached Monterey. One single family company owned all the vines along a 70 mile stretch of valley. Big business.

Our Morro Bay experience was delightful and many pieces of the puzzle finally fell into place for this to feel much more like our trips of years past.

Firstly, topography. The town is named for the big rock that sits at the entrance to the harbour. This is actually a volcanic plug that has resisted erosion more than the surrounding rock, thus standing proud. It is actually one of seven morros, but definitely the most splendid. It is reminiscent of the Rock of Gibralter, but instead of Barbary apes, it is a seasonal breeding home to a large population of Peregrine falcons. (Not here now, of course). It also has a fine sandy surf beach to the north of the morro, and a large sandbar to the south. The sandbar is a wildlife refuge and acts to shelter the town from the ocean, creating a large calm estuary.

Secondly, it has a resident population of rare sea otters. These used to be abundant until humans hunted them to near exinction in the 18th century. They were valued for their pelts which has fur so thick that, in life, their skin stays dry when they are swimming. The fur also traps a lot of air and they look imensely cute just floating around on their backs in the calm waters of the harbour. Mother otters will fluff-up the fur of their babies by blow-drying them, so that they can float too. The otters use rocks to break open shellfish, and will carry around their pet rocks in pouches of loose skin in their armpits. Genius. There are also the usual sea lions and seals hanging out.

Thirdly, our camp was right on the beach which delivered an amazing sunset each of the three nights we were here. Late afternoon we joined the zombie-like crowds who could not resist the lure of the setting sun, all standing in our little groups taking a million photos of the same thing. Our third night here there was a full moon and the gorgeous sunset was matched by the simultaneous moonrise.

Fourthly, the town had a fantastic paved cycle trail that connected our park with the town, about a mile away. This made getting about a pleasure, and meant that so many other people were also walking and cycling, scooting and skateboarding and generally transporting themselves without the aid of a combustion engine. Town planning like this definately gets people out of their cars and we love to see it.

And lastly, but not leastly, the weather. Finally it stopped raining and the sun shone almost continually. This pleases me.

Other points of interest of Morro Bay: It too is dominated by the stacks of a power station, although the one here was decomissioned in 2014 and they are still deciding whether to demolish the chimneys. I think they look good, although I imagine they will fall down one day if not dealt with. It also has lots of nice harbourside eateries, at one of which we had a marvellous lunch. The sunny outside terrace was unexpectedly deserted, but looked a perfect spot for a few beers with seafood. The hostess said that because she only had two servers, they were only serving meals inside which was packed. We could however order take-out, and eat it on the terrace. The bar was separate, and happy for us to buy beers at the bar and take them out. Perfect. The hostess then proceded to bring us napkins and condiments and our ‘take-out’ meal was served to us at our table on plates. She also served us more beers to our table. I think that we scored a private dining experience without having to pay a tip! The enjoyment of our meal was slightly tempered as we watched a seagull drown a pigeon.