After Jalama Beach, our plan was to go to visit Emily and BK who live in San Luis Obispo. Emily is a psychologist, and for many years Emily and Susan shared an office in SLC. Before the trip we knew that Emily and BK lived on Marsh Street in downtown San Luis Obispo, and there was no way we were going to be able to park the trailer on the street in front of their house.
We were going to stay at Emily and BK’s place, and we would not need the trailer. We wanted to disconnect the trailer from the car so that we could do day trips in the area with just the car. I did some research on the web and found Weiperts RV and Boat storage in San Luis Obispo. I tried emailing and I tried calling Weiperts, but no response. An then an idea (an inspiration?). I regularly read the FiberglassRV forum, for people with small fiberglass trailers, and I posted about my dilemma and asked for suggestions for storage in San Luis Obispo. And lo and behold Kevin from Arroyo Grande (15 miles from San Luis Obispo) contacted me and said he has room next to his house! So on our way to San Luis Obispo, we stopped in Arroyo Grande. We met Kevin and parked our trailer. In some ways, the internet is amazing, and you find people can be kind and generous!
Here is a picture of Kevin from Arroyo Grande.
Emily and BK have a wonderful townhouse in San Luis Obispo. It is downtown, so many things are within a short walk. San Luis Obispo is a college town, so there are interesting shops and restaurants, as well as music and theatre. One evening we walked to the San Luis Obispo Reparatory Theatre and saw a great production of Blithe Spirit, written by Noël Coward in 1941. Their townhouse is beautiful, and they have a wonderful dog, Anji. Emily was very concerned that Susan would dog-nap Anji on the morning we left.
Here is a picture of Emily and BK, and, of course, Anji.
One day Emily and BK took us to Avila Beach, where we walked on the pier and visited the Central Coast Aquarium. Emily and BK had visited the aquarium before, and they were smitten by a California two-spot octopus named Linda. We were pretty impressed with Linda, too. These octopi are smart, about as smart as four-year-old. They can live for several years. When they mate, the female lays eggs, and then both the male and female senesce and die. How sad!
Here is a video:
The staff at the aquarium were amazing, full of information. This is a horn shark or bullhead shark. Sharks lay eggs, and the embryos develop in egg cases called Chondrichthyes. They had a series of egg cases at different levels of development, and in some of them we could see the embryos move.
Another day Susan and I drove on our own the 30 miles to the coastal town of Cambria (pop 6,000), which is the closest community to Hearst Castle. Susan’s father had grown up in Cambria, and it is a delightful community. He grew up pulling abalone off the rocks at the seashore. Susan’s cousin Nick lives in Cambria and we visited with him.
Here is a picture of Susan and Nick, in front of the house on Bridge Street where her father grew up.
Susan’s grandparents built the house, and then her Uncle Wilfred and Aunt Hazel lived there. Wilfred and Hazel had both worked at Hearst Castle in its heyday, with Hazel serving as lady’s maid to Hearst’s mistress, actress Marion Davies. Wilfred knew all the local history, and he was a founding member the Cambria Historical Society. Today Wilfred and Hazel’s daughter DeAnn and her husband Troy own the house; they live there only part of the year and we missed them on our visit. The house has a gorgeous garden.
Together we drove up the hill on Bridge Street to the Cambria Cemetery. Susan’s father is buried in this cemetery, as are her grandparents and aunts and uncles. This is a really lovely cemetery, in the woods, and not at all like the manicured cemeteries we are used to seeing. There are conventional stone markers, but also graves with added stained glass, wind chimes, shells, driftwood and all sorts of artistic additions. It is really peaceful and pleasant.
We then drove to the Piedras Blancas Elephant Seal rookery, just north of Hearst Castle. We learned from the Friends of the Elephant Seal that at this time of the year it was juveniles were on the beach for a month of molting. They have to shed their old skin and hair on the beach, and then they can grow a new skin layer. While swimming they limit the flow of blood outside of the blubber layer, and cannot grow new skin and hair; this allows them to protect themselves from severe energy loss in the cold ocean. Later in the year, the sub-adult males come to molt. We had been there previously in December, when the adult males are there, fighting for dominance.
You can see this guy is molting.
The juveniles spar, getting ready for when they are adults.
Elephant seals as far as the eye can see!
We left San Luis Obispo very early, without Anji, sadly, and drove to Arroyo Grande and picked up our trailer. We then had a long drive to Snow Canyon State Park, next blog post.