Last Monday morning, 3/14, we left Chico with a car packed to the roof, ready for a week of spring break fun. Our itinerary: Ano Nuevo elephant seal reserve, Monterey Bay Aquarium, camping and exploring in Big Sur, and camping and exploring at Pinnacles National Monument.
It was a drizzly afternoon at Ano Nuevo, but we were impressed with our docent's knowledge.
Most of the elephant seal bulls and females had returned to sea, but we saw a great many weaned pups and a few lesser males. You can see a male with the characteristic nose and a weaned pup in the background.
Elephant seals can dive up to one mile deep and dive for periods up to 2 hours and 20 minutes. Males can loose up to 1500 pounds while on the beaches courting and mating between December and February. The males and females go without eating for a few months during this birthing-nursing, and mating period.
Tuesday we spent six hours at the Monterey Bay Aquarium taking in all of the exhibits and two of the auditorium shows. We were all amazed at the things we saw & learned, and exhausted by the end of the day. We started the day with watching the sea otter feeding and ended the day with the penguin feeding. In between we saw: sea horses, penguins, crabs, cuttlefish, rays, sharks, mackerel, kelp forest, jelly fish, moray eels, sardines, and many other creatures.
This is a leafy sea dragon; a type of sea horse. It is incredibly camouflaged.
From the wonders of the aquarium, we headed south to camp in Pfieffer Big Sur St. Park. We began the next morning driving south to Sand Dollar beach, where nary a sand dollar (or shell for that matter) was to be found. Ross and Katya did pick a beautiful bouquet of coastal wildflowers.
After lunch, we drove north to the Pacific Valley Bluff trail for some fun wandering and incredible views. That is Ross at the edge of the world.
Northward again, we enjoyed our final hike of the day at McWay Falls (see the group shot at the beginning of this blog entry). Unfortunately the beach is closed to preserve its natural beauty. So we walked the trail to the vista point.
Our last bit of exploring in Big Sur took place at Pfieffer State Beach. You might notice that the sand has a reddish-purplish cast to it, that is because there are deposits of rose quartz that are being eroded to sand.
While we were in Big Sur, Highway 1 south of Carmel slid into the ocean and we had to go south to then go north to Pinnacles National Monument. The campground at Pinnacles was utilitarian and uninspiring, but the hikes were definitely trip highlights for us. We were able to watch from fairly close, 2 condors soaring near the High Peaks. We also explored the Bear Gulch talus caves, which are only open a few months each year (rest of the time closed to protect the Townsend big eared bat). The caves consisted of a lower more developed (stairs & walkways) and upper undeveloped (arrows on the walls walking through streams and squeezing through tight spots) complexes which far exceeded our expectations!
Bear Gulch caves.
"Steep and Narrow" section of the High Peaks Trail. Katya hiked about 7 miles this day!
Scott, Jamie and the girls drove over from Fortuna on Friday evening. Mike, Amanda, Kurt, and Karl arrived at 10:30 followed by Phil, Sandy, Cedric, and Peg. Several people contributed their special talents for birthday entertainment. 
