Pacific Coast Highway

Today was a beautiful day for riding. The temperature held about 62 degrees for most of the afternoon, which makes for pleasant riding in full gear. As you can see in the photo album, the sun was out most of the day as well.

We took Highway 101 up from Orcutt to San Luis Obispo, where we stopped for gas. San Luis Obispo is a nice town, and I wished we could have spent more time there. From San Luis Obispo, we got on California Highway 1, which is better known as the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH). We were inland for a while and only viewed more coastal foothills with green and golden grasses and lots of yellow buttercup flowers.

About 30 minutes later, we got our first true glimpse of the Pacific Ocean, after which we were never far from it. I included a couple of those shots in the album.

The first stop of consequence was a northern elephant seal colony at Point Piedras Blancas. These seals were once hunted almost to extinction but have made a remarkable comeback. Protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act, they are expanding their range outward from remote islands and are now colonizing selected mainland beaches. Elephant seals come ashore and form colonies only a few months of each year to give birth, breed, and molt. The rest of the colonies disperse and individuals spend most of their time in pursuit of food, a quest which involves swimming thousands of miles and diving to great depths. You will see in the photo of two young bulls that one seems to be losing his skin. This is an example of molting. This process takes about three to four weeks and involves sloughing off of the outer layer of skin. Molting on land prevents excessive loss of body heat in the water. Females and babies molt in the spring, while bulls molt in summer.

We saw other wildlife today as well. An odd-looking squirrel/prairie dog mother was protecting her young ones (see the album), while a huge white dog preceded another little lizard friend. Although I don’t have any photos, sea birds were also abundant, often gliding along with us on the currents flowing beside the cliffs.

We stopped for lunch at Ragged Point, which had a lodge, nice restaurant, gas station, gift shop, and lunch counter. We opted for the lunch counter and had some of the best sandwiches of our trip. I included some shots of the lodge and the scenery overlooking the Pacific.

The Pacific Coast Highway is one of the least-straight roads on which I’ve ever traveled. The hairpin curves numbered in the hundreds during our 75+ miles on the cliffs section between San Luis Obispo and Monterey. Dad is used to the mountain curves from growing up in Spring Creek, North Carolina, but even he confessed to being unable at time to take his eyes off the road to enjoy the scenery. Even so, we enjoyed this leg of the trip immensely.

As for Yosemite tomorrow, we had to cancel our reservation in Lee Vining, California. This is disappointing because we reserved a neat two-room cabin all to ourselves. The trouble was that the cabin was on the eastern side of Yosemite, and the only way to get to it would have been over a road in the highest elevations of the park (over 8,000 feet), which is expecting snow tonight and tomorrow night. So, for the first time, we are leaving one destination without knowing where we’ll be sleeping that night. It is possible that there will not be a blog entry on Sunday evening (for your wake-up enjoyment on Monday morning).

On a more personal note, I would appreciate any thoughts and prayers for my mother, who is undergoing some medical tests back in Asheville, North Carolina. She’s missed the blog for the last couple of days, but she’ll catch up soon.

194.4 miles today. 3,401.1 total miles.