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During last July’s 5.8 earthquake, 3-year-old Bronwyn told her 1-year-old sister, “We’re going for a wiggle.” READ MORE
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The sun was low, a golden orange and casting long shadows down the rocky, deserted beach. My young daughter, showing no signs of being cold despite wearing only a light cotton dress, skipped over the glistening pebbles on her way to some sea gulls that were hoping to be fed the remains of an early dinner. Her younger brother, all business in red rubber boots, was already feeding the hungry birds, his pockets stuffed with French fries and, as we discovered later when we got back to the car, a hermit crab he hoped to take home as a pet. The sun settled softly into the sea. The gulls, satisfied the easy food was gone, sailed off. A light offshore wind met the water, rippling the surface. Only the sound of the waves broke the silence. A magic ending to a simple day of exploring California's Central Coast. Several years after that evening on Moonstone Beach, the photographs I took have faded a little. The mental pictures, though, remain vivid. The beaches near our San Luis Obispo home and north along Highway 1 to Monterey have been a memorable part of our family time together. Beginning only four hours from Orange County, exploring the Central Coast for a weekend or a week can be a part of yours as well. From San Luis Obispo to Big Sur, the family opportunities provide memorable moments for every age group. Here are some of our favorite activities centered around the beach communities of the Central Coast: SAN LUIS OBISPO First stop, San Luis Obispo. Here you can find accommodations, from the unusual Madonna Inn to motel row along Monterey Street, to plenty of downtown restaurants (McClintock's for hamburgers; Louisa's along Higuera Street for breakfast). Stroll through the Mission San Luis Obispo and take a walk onto the Cal Poly campus. This is a great town to get your bearings after a long drive. In fact, downtown's Mission Plaza is THE spot for a picnic. Try Muzio's Grocery & Deli for sandwiches and chips and eat along the tree-lined creek. You can then walk to the mission and the Children's Museum. After you've strengthened those travel legs... Just west of San Luis Obispo and within sight of Morro Bay, you will find rolling mustard-covered hills, fields covered in wild flowers, dramatic cliffs plunging into the sea where the water surges into rocky crevices. Montana de Oro State Park on the western edge of Los Osos is one of the most beautiful parts of the California coast. And until recently, it was strictly off-limits for our family due to the wayward character of our youngest beachcomber. That's because his favorite pastimes used to be wandering off for adventure, chasing any available ground squirrels or running around at top speed just for the heck of it. Those habits, combined with Montana de Oro's sheer sand cliffs, produced serious heart palpatations in his parents about every 30 seconds. "Well, that was relaxing," I said to my wife as sarcastically as possible after an early trip to the park. Rather than strap a short leash on him or stick to the only flat sand in the park, the picturesque but small Spooner's Cove, we have forsaken Montana de Oro for more coronary-friendly beaches near Cayucos and Moonstone Beach. A recent return trip sans kids revealed what we've been missing - a gorgeous and remarkably unspoiled park. Older children would love this place. We're planning an outing as soon as I find a rope. A much more sedate experience, but still a pleasant one, is a stroll down the boardwalk at the Elfin Forest Preserve on the northern end of Los Osos. The 90-acre Elfin Forest, named after a stand of rare pygmy oaks, overlooks the Morro Bay estuary and is a great spot for bird-watching. More than 100 species of birds call the estuary home at different times of the year. On our last visit, we watched a great blue heron and a couple of white egrets spear breakfast from the calm water only a few feet from the boardwalk. If you're searching for fresh food, the Bayside Cafe around the estuary toward Morro Bay is a good choice. Young ornithologists agree the black bean burritos or the clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl hit the spot. The Cafe looks out on sailboats in the Morro Bay State Park Marina and sits below a rocky outcropping that houses the Morro Bay Museum of Natural History. Recently refurbished, the museum features cool new interactive exhibits that detail the estuary's myriad bird, mammal, reptile, amphibian and invertebrate life. The museum also offers a great view of Morro Rock, the giant slab of granite named by explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo in the 16th century that gives the town, harbor and estuary its name. After learning about the natural world indoors at the museum, you can get back to the thick of it quickly at the kayak rentals at the State Park Marina. Kayaks are the perfect way to explore the back alleys of the estuary and check out the herons and harbor seals at water level. Cruise to the estuary's sand spit. IF YOU GO: San Luis Obispo County Visitors and Conference Bureau 805.541.8000 www.sanluisobispocounty.com For Chamber of Commerce info: 1039 Chorro St. 805.781.2777 www.visitSLO.com SLO Children's Museum 101 Nipomo St. 805.544.5437 Montana de Oro State Park www.parks.ca.gov Elfin Forest Preserve, Los Osos 805.528.0392 Morro Bay Natural History Museum 805.772.2694, www.morrobaymuseum.org State Park Marina Kayak Rentals 805.772.8796 CAYUCOS That Cayucos, the next little town up the coast from Morro Bay, was named after the Chumash Indian word for "little canoes," is not surprising when you see the dozens of ocean kayaks offshore during the summer months. The sandy beach, relatively mellow waves, intricate tidepools and healthy kelp forest just north of the pier combine to form the perfect place for kayakers of all abilities. The surf shop Good Clean Fun rents double kayaks ($35 for two hours) or, if your little paddlers are strong enough, single boats ($25 for two hours). Add $10 to make it for a half-day, a good amount of time to explore the pristine coast. Be sure to bring hats, water and a couple of Powerbars - paddling works up an appetite. Once back on dry land, a good, clean place for family food is the Sea Shanty. Fish sandwiches and chocolate shakes all around. (OK, make that three fish sandwiches, one plain hamburger and four shakes). Cayucos Chamber of Commerce 800.563.1878 www.cayucoschamber.com CAMBRIA After exploring the local beaches, kicking around the small town of Cambria has become a favorite family pastime for a lazy Sunday afternoon. First settled in 1860 "where the pines meet the sea" about 35 miles north of San Luis Obispo, Cambria was named after the Latin word for Wales (the rocky coastal landscape apparently reminded someone of the British Isles). It's like one of those quaint little villages out of an old Hollywood movie. There's basically one street in town - Main Street, naturally - and it's lined with art galleries, ice cream parlors, antique stores, restaurants and eclectic little shops of all description. Two virtually guaranteed to delight children are the Soldier Gallery and the Village Wizard. The Soldier Gallery is just that, a gallery devoted to the art of the toy soldier. Ranging in price from the low double to the high triple figures, the gallery has thousands of hand-painted soldiers from a dizzying array of battles. How many toy soldiers? "I don't know, we never really do inventory," says "Mack," the store manager, with a laugh. "There's too many to inventory." Certainly there's enough to interest everyone. While adults are drawn to the Civil War and Napoleonic battlefields, my young cadets enjoy the WWII soldiers (boy) and the Lord of the Rings figurines (girl). Magic happens across Main Street from the Soldier Gallery. The Village Wizard offers magic tricks, magic books, magic videos and magic shows along with brain teasers and fantasy toys. Apprentice wizards (or the grand wizard himself) greet each new group of visitors with a short magic act. On our last visit to the wiz, my young Houdini was impressed by the card tricks performed by an apprentice wizard, Chenoa. If you're interested in making your hunger vanish quickly, Cambria has two great places for families, the Main Street Grill and Linn's Restaurant and Bakery. The Grill has the full menu of cooked meat, super generous portions and some of the best fries you've ever tasted. Linn's in town - there's food at the original Linn's farm a scenic five miles east of Cambria, too - has a more complete menu and the best pie you've ever tasted. Fries and pie. That won't win you any points with a nutritionist, but it's vacation, right? A Cambria cautionary tale: The town is extremely popular during summer months and securing a room reservation is a must. Contact the Cambria Chamber of Commerce (805.927.3624, www.cambriachamber.org) for a list of motels and B&Bs. Or maybe the Village Wizard can help. In any event, you probably want to stay ocean-close along Moonstone Beach. MOONSTONE BEACH With its blue-green water cascading over countless mussel-covered rocks, Moonstone Beach lives up to its name. Adjacent to Cambria's West Village, the unusual landscape never fails those beachcombers looking for a perfectly oval-shaped rock, a sea gull feather or that rare piece of driftwood. Moonstone Beach is the southern gateway to the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, and it shows. A walk down the tidepool-lined beach seemingly never fails to produce glimpses of sea otters floating in the kelp, dolphins jumping through the waves, seals basking on the rocks or gray whales spouting far off shore. There are several small hotels on the southern end of Moonstone Beach ideal for a weekend getaway. Check out www.moonstonehotels.com for details. SAN SIMEON/HEARST CASTLE In the 1920s, newspaper publisher and film producer William Randolph Hearst was personally making more than $10,000 a day, an absolute fortune in those days. Much of Hearst's fortune is still on display at Hearst Castle, his "ranch house" on the hill overlooking San Simeon Bay about six miles north of Cambria. Designed by architect Julia Morgan and built over a 28-year period starting in 1919 (and you thought your kitchen remodel took a long time), Hearst's dream house was never finished. Then again, it takes awhile to build a 56-bedroom, 61-bathroom house on 90,000 square feet of rocky ridgetop. Hearst Castle is quite literally a piece of Europe in California. Hearst, the son of a wealthy silver mine owner, traveled extensively throughout Europe as a child. After his unprecedented success in the newspaper business, he was determined to recreate a European villa on the family's then-250,000-acre Central Coast cattle ranch where he could entertain the most famous people of the era. The guest list included Hollywood stars like Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Greta Garbo and David Niven, literary giants such as George Bernard Shaw and Louella Parsons, politicians like Winston Churchill and Calvin Coolidge, and other notables such as Howard Hughes and Charles Lindbergh. The guests were treated as European royalty. Renaissance Italian and Spanish art decorate the walls of the main house, Casa Grande, which has 115 rooms and is modeled after a twin-towered Spanish cathedral, and the three "smaller" guest houses - they only have 14 to 18 rooms each. All are linked by a network of terraces and flower lined pathways. All feature imported Italian marble, French, Italian and Spanish furniture and hand-carved ceilings that are each an exquisite, and now priceless, work of art. As impressive as the interior is, the Greek-inspired Neptune Pool at the entrance to the castle grounds and the tile-encased Roman Pool at the exit will probably excite your young publishers the most. (If the day is warm, you may have to keep your children from jumping into the inviting blue water). Aside from swimming, guests could also enjoy horseback riding, tennis, watching the latest movies in a beautifully appointed theater or touring Hearst's private zoo. Check out the hillsides on your drive to the Visitor Center. Chances are you'll catch a glimpse of a herd of zebras who were once zoo residents. A 40-minute IMAX movie, "Hearst Castle: Building the Dream," in the National Geographic Theater at the Visitor Center is a good way to get started on our exploration of the estate, which is now operated by the California State Parks as a historic house museum. Four different parts of Hearst Castle are open to visitors who are bused up the trademarked Enchanted Hill for separate tours. Tour basics are: Tour 1 - The Casa del Sol guest house; lower floors of Casa Grande; the outdoor Esplanade and gardens. Tour 2 - Upper floors of Casa Grande including both libraries and Hearst's private suite. Tour 3 - Casa del Monte guest house; the north wing of Casa del Grande and a short film in the theater on the complexity involved in the construction of the estate. Tour 4 - Casa del Mar guest house; wine cellar and a longer tour of the garden. Since the garden tour showcases thousands of blooming plants, Tour 4 is available April through October only. For a quick overview, Tour 1 is probably your best bet, though Tour 2 is my personal favorite. It's easy to imagine the tuxedo-clad Hearst up in his library checking out the latest news from around the world on his state-of-the-art teletype machine - the CNN or Fox News Channel of its day. While the libraries may not interest the kids ("Where are the computers?"), note that all four tours begin and end with the spectacular swimming pools. If your guys are like mine, they'll leave with big plans for their next birthday party. Hearst Castle Experience Tour tour tickets, which include Tour 1 and the IMAX movie, are $18 for adults and $9 for children ages 6-17. Children under 6 are free for all tours. Tickets for Tours 2, 3 and 4 are $12 and $7. Evening Tour prices are $24 for adults and $12 for children. Hearst Castle State Park 800.444.4445 www.hearstcastle.com National Geographic IMAX Theater 805.927.6811 ELEPHANT SEAL COLONY Like a scene from a National Geographic special or a segment on Animal Planet, thousands of elephant seals crowd the narrow beaches and glide through the rugged surf north of San Simeon and just south of the Piedras Blancas Lighthouse. The seals always prompt a big reaction. We have visited the colony of nearly 10,000 elephant seals that call the rocky sand 4.4 miles north of Hearst Castle their home. Viewed from about 20 feet above the beach on a newly constructed observation walkway, the colony is impressive for its size, constant barking and, depending on the wind direction, fishy smell. This is nature in the raw, where 4,000-pound "Alpha" males with their billowy, leathery trunks - hence the name elephant seals - engage in bloody battles with other "Beta" males over the smaller, trunk-less females, and the small black pups that are born each January bark constantly to keep tabs on their mothers. The seals, which feed primarily on squid and can dive to an astounding 500 feet below sea level to seek food or avoid great white sharks and orca whales, their only predators, populate this beach when they're not gorging in the nutrient-rich waters in the northern Pacific and off the coast of Alaska. "They're here almost all year, with the breeding season from January to March and the molting season from April to September showing the biggest numbers," says Ray Hopkins, a blue-clad docent with the Friends of the Elephant Seals, an organization dedicated to the unusual mammal. "Only in October is the colony vacant." Now for a parent alert: Because these beaches are the primary breeding grounds for the colony and the mating habits of this animal are, shall we say, extremely indiscreet, parents should note a visit may offer an impromptu sex education opportunity. Or at least an imaginative explanation on your part. Friends of the Elephant Seal 805.924.1628 www.elephantseal.org PIEDRAS BLANCAS LIGHTHOUSE Just up Highway 1 from the elephant seal colony are the huge white rocks that explorer Juan Cabrillo named in 1542 and today provide a base for the 129-year-old lighthouse. After decades of being closed to visitors, the Piedras Blancas lighthouse recently reopened for tours. Stuck on a rocky point, battered by wind and rain, the 115-foot lighthouse is in poor condition and the tour, which is helping to pay for restoration, is short. The location is spectacular, however, and bird-watchers will be thrilled by the thousands of cormorants and other sea birds that nest on the rocks just offshore. And, my little explorers, that's why the rocks are white. The once-a-month tours typically sell out, so reservations are a must. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for children age 5-16. Piedras Blancas Lighthouse Tour reservations 805.927.6811 FARTHER UP HIGHWAY 1 Beyond the castle, you are on the famous, winding, two-lane highway that, about 90 miles later, will deposit you in the Carmel-Monterey area. This beginning point is the spectacular entrance into Big Sur. While there are campgrounds, galleries, vista stops, hiking trails and fishing holes along this drive, try two places if you stop along the way. For a rustic overnight stay, consider Deetjen's Big Sur Inn (831.667.2377), which hasn't changed much since it was built by a Norwegian immigrant in the 1930s. The inn has its own forest, so take time to walk deep into it. Its restaurant is a wonderful location for dinner. Less than a mile away is Nepenthe (831.667.2345), a restaurant that overlooks the Pacific Ocean. This is a good, if pricey, place for lunch or dinner. Then, as you continue north, know that you are entering Northern California, and Carmel, and Monterey, and finally the San Francisco area. Dennis Steers of San Luis Obispo is a nationally renowned photographer. He is an editor and designer. In May's issue, he will take us on a travel adventure to Monterey. TRAVEL TIP Turn on the lights Lighthouses provide history and travel What to do that is really unusual with the family this summer? One trip, whether it is cross-country or cross state, would be to locate numerous lighthouses. They provide maritime history wrapped with in a travel package. There are several good sources to get you started online (start with www.islc.net/moes/topsites.html). Also, a new resource is "The Ultimate Book of Lighthouses" (Samuel Willard Crompton and Michael J. Rhein, Thunder Bay Press, 352 pages). The book opens with a map of the United States and Canada pinpointing lighthouses from Point Sur in Big Sur to Old Cape Spear in Newfoundland. Some Internet research will help keep the reading updated (a fund-raising effort, for example, is underway to preserve Morris Island Light in Charleston Harbor). Whichever way you point the car or the plane, a lighthouse will be awaiting on an ocean shore or channel. This richly photographed book, which breaks down lighthouses by type (beach and sandbar, cliff lights, lake and river beacons), provides a clue on which direction you might want to take the family. Lighthouses, like the Old West, are a unique part of American history. It is hard to go wrong with this road map. - By Craig Reem |
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