We spent our first day on the Central Coast at Pismo’s Monarch Grove, before heading to San Luis Obispo to walk around downtown. There weren’t many butterflies left; most had moved on. The best time to see the monarchs is in November and December. Still, it was a beautiful day.
I also caught a great picture of a Great Blue Heron looking for lunch.
Luck wasn’t on our side today. We spent the afternoon fishing off of the Cayucos Pier, but the fish weren’t biting. In the evening, we watched the Cal Poly baseball home opener, which they unfortunately lost to Pepperdine.
The world was all laid out before us when we made it to the top of Murray Hill, where we could see all of San Luis Obispo, Edna Valley, and even the Pismo dunes.
The entire 5.3 mile Reservoir Canyon Loop took us about 5 hours to complete, but the view along the ridge was totally worth it.
My boys got to experience Hearst Castle for the first time, when we took them on the Grand Rooms tour.
There was a good movie we watched about Hearst before catching the bus up the mountain for our tour. The views from on top of the mountain were amazing. The boys liked the outside grounds and pools more than the inside of the main house.
We couldn’t have our traditional Easter gathering with family this year, due to the pandemic. But, we still managed to put baskets together for the boys and let them color Easter eggs. We also put together a scavenger Easter egg hunt, where they had to solve a clue to find the next egg.
My “Bub” turned 12, and although we are stuck inside we tried to make it a special day. Aliciana made him a cool baseball themed banner, and his little brother made him a cool green bear out of clay. There were presents, pizza, and a cake for dessert.
Another Covid-19 shelter-at-home birthday, this time for Connor. Aliciana made a cool Pokemon themed banner, and he received lots of Legos.
For his special birthday dinner, he requested Spaghetti Factory, his favorite. And for dessert, him and mom made homemade dairy-free ice cream sandwiches.
We got some much needed outdoors time, rare in these times of pandemic. The boys had fun figuring out how to skip rocks into the lake.
There were quite a few animals out: pelicans diving for fish, lizards, rabbits, and birds of all sorts.
Starting at a trailhead in Los Osos, we hiked over massive dunes and then along the beach on the strip of land that separates Morro Bay from the ocean.
My hope was to get to hike back across the dunes to the bay side, and take some photos across the bay of Morro Bay. But all the dunes, besides a small path we took to get to the beach, was closed off because the Snowy Plover just leaves it eggs laying around, and they are endangered.
We spent the afternoon in Moonstone Beach, walking along the boardwalk, climbing on the rocks, and looking for cool beach pebbles.
Unfortunately, I forgot my camera in the car. So, I had to settle with taking pictures of our delicious dinner at Main Street Grill, which is what Firestones calls their Cambria location.
We started off with the idea of just hiking around the Lemon Grove trail at the base of Cerro San Luis Obispo, also known as Madonna Mountain. But, the hike was going well so we decided to take another trail to the “M”, placed on the mountain by Mission High School.
After we made it up that trail, we were halfway up the mountain, so we decided to challenge ourselves to make it to the top. The view from on top of the peak was amazing.
The boys wanted to walk around Cal Poly; they love to explore where they might be attending college. Because of Covid, we pretty much had the entire place to ourselves.
After stopping off to say hello to the elephant seals, who were mostly out to sea, we went for a hike on a gorgeous San Simeon day.
We spent all afternoon on San Simeon Point, surrounded by the ocean, walking along the cliffs and through the trees. The boys enjoyed exploring the rock formations flowing into the ocean.
The boys enjoyed playing in the water and collecting sand dollars at a nice beach in Cayucos, off the beaten path. I used to play at this beach when I was their age.
