November 29, 2009

We went to San Francisco for a week to visit my family for Thanksgiving. 

We enjoyed a couple of relaxing days of just lounging around.  We took a couple of walks on the beach.  The first day was a little strange.  As we headed down the rocky embankment to the beach, we stepped on something squishy.  At first I thought it was just some squishy ground, but then I saw the bones sticking up.  I couldn’t figure out what it was, but it was big.  We jumped over the dead critter and kept going.  We figured it out a short distance further up the beach.  A dead sea lion was rotting on the beach.  It appeared mostly intact except its skull was completely exposed, a demonic sight that reminded me of bad artwork.

Then we kicked it more into a vacation gear for a couple days.  On Monday, we headed south on the coastal highway.  We haven’t explored much in California before so it was a new experience.  We were a little surprised by the farm land and grazing land that butted right up against the coast.  We tend to think of coastal real estate as high dollar so it was a little unexpected to see cows grazing with spectacular views of the Pacific Coast.

We stopped along the way to enjoy the scenery.  Hundreds of marine mammals floating in the surf caught our attention at one point.  We could not identify them as they were pretty far away.  They were either sea lions or elephant seals moving along the coast.  The Pacific Coast was pretty much as expected.  Steep rocky shores provided scenic vistas and occasional sandy beaches provided access for surfers.

The primary destination was Ano Nuevo State Park.  A two mile hike brought us to a beach where hundreds of elephant seals were basking in the sun.  The park had volunteers stationed at viewing locations on the short bluff above the beach, controlling the visitors and answering questions.  Mostly young elephant seals lined the beach near the viewing locations.  A few large males could be seen patrolling the surf and occasionally scooting along the beach.  These were the ones with the odd noses.  They occasionally let out a loud clicking bellow that reverberated in the large cove area.  Younger males were engaging in fighting behavior, slapping their necks and heads at each other and wrestling in the water.  We were fascinated to see such unusual creatures and behaviors.  We also saw some porpoises, an otter, and many shore birds on the hike.  Animal footprints in the sand confirmed the presence of deer, coyotes, and probably bobcats.

We continued south along the coast to Santa Cruz.  We stopped at Natural Bridges State Park, a winter stopping ground for monarch butterflies.  We saw many butterflies fluttering high in the eucalyptus trees, but we were probably early for the bulk of them.  We also saw the remaining arch in the water that provided the park with its name.  In the past century, erosion has removed many arches, threatening to soon create confusion on the park’s name.

On Tuesday we headed a bit more inland with my sister to Pinnacles National Monument.  It was a two hour drive that took us past San Jose and through several smaller towns.  One of the smaller towns is best known for growing and processing garlic.  The whole town smelled like garlic.  The park is located in a relatively remote location.  It was pleasant for me to get away from the traffic and development and see that California is not all bad.  The park is named for the pointy rocks that appear to have thrust up out of the ground in the small mountains.  The climate reminded us of parts of Utah, almost desert but well vegetated.  The park is part of the condor restoration efforts, but we did not see any of the large birds. 

We hiked a six mile loop that took us up one drainage about 1300 feet of elevation gain to a ridgeline, then across the ridge and back down another drainage.  The ridgeline involved some challenging narrow steep trails.  Stair steps were carved into the rocks and hand rails were provided for the really steep stuff.  On the way down we took a side trip up another drainage to a small reservoir of water and then down through a narrow collapsed canyon.  Large rocks had jammed between the canyon walls forming a ceiling in places.  We followed this canyon trail under and down through levels of rock.  In places, we needed our flashlights to see in the cave-like environment.  In most places, natural light filtered in through the large rocks above.  Some sections were closed, presumably to protect the bats that frequent these formations.

Wednesday was another relaxing day, although we took a long hike up the beach from my sister’s house.  Thursday brought high surf and surfers, so we walked up the beach to watch the big waves crashing on the rocks and the surfers looking for the perfect wave.  I enjoy watching and photographing surfing.  Maybe someday I should try it.

Friday ended our holiday visiting as we headed back to Anchorage.  We got upgraded to first class on the leg from San Francisco.  There aren’t too many Alaska Airlines MVP’s from San Francisco so even though we were flying on frequent flyer miles, they upgraded us anyway.  We weren’t so lucky on the second leg, but we did manage to get on an earlier flight and eliminate most of a five hour layover. 

The ski season started.  We have two days under our belts now.  The snow was pretty good.  Only the lower mountain was opened yesterday and it was pretty crowded.  It was good for getting our confidence back.  My new boots felt pretty good as well.  Today we headed up early to avoid the afternoon crowds even though they were planning to open the upper mountain in the afternoon.  We had nice runs in the morning, although the racing crowd was moving way too fast on the un-crowded slopes, making it scary to slow down and pull over to take a break.  We did catch the opening of the upper mountain pretty well and managed to get three runs in from the top before the crowds got unbearable.  The three runs were in deep powder since the upper mountain has not opened yet this year.  It was what we call bottomless powder since the skies never seem to hit anything solid underneath.  Even our poles just poked into the snow without any resistance.  We didn’t have our wider skis, but our form hasn’t degraded much over the summer and we skied the deep heavy snow respectably.  It was a perfect day.  Our muscles are sore.