Monterery and Salinas, CA

Waking up today was sad because the fog was everywhere. We decided that it would be a good day to go to the Monterery Aquarium, hoping that by the time we had finished seeing all the displays the fog would have lifted along the coast. My favorite displays were the jellyfish and seahorses.

Leaving the aquarium we walked along the pathway from Monterery to Pacific Grove even though it was still foggy. Some of the birds we saw were Black Oystercatchers, California Gulls, a Red-shouldered Hawk plus Double-crested Cormorants.

After drving along the coast we decided to drive inland toward Salinas where we stopped at a county park. Among the birds we saw there was the unique Acorn Woodpecker. This bird drills holes into the bark of trees that they later fill with acorns to eat during the winter months.

Lastly, we found an excellent diner "Ellie's American Diner" where we had dinner. The food is awesome!

Stone Harbor Beaches

I walked out to the point along the road. While walking out I saw a good number of American Robins, Northern Mockingbirds and Song Sparrows. There were just 4 American Oystercatchers out along the beach so I decided to walk back to the parking area via the beach.

The waves were crashing along the beach with some surfers out catching the waves. I found the snow fencing made some interesting shadow patterns in the sand. 

  I saw a Herring Gull that had a Seahorse in it's beak.  I found it interesting that in 27 years of living at the shore I'd never seen a seahorse and in the past 2 weeks I have seen 2 of them.

LBI ~ Holgate

Years & years ago I spent one summer vacation in Peahala Park on LBI with a cousin's family. I thought maybe today I'd be able to figure out where it was exactly I'd stayed and see if the old house from the 60's was still there. The reason why was my family were going on another 5 week camping trip. this time to the Western USA and I couldn't stomach the thought of spending all of that time in our car. What a fool I was as I missed the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone National Park, Yosemite National Park and some other great places that I still haven't been able to see as an adult! Driving down the length of LBI takes longer than I realized. It has been built up heavily with what I'd call McMansions but as I reached Peahala Park there was their old house standing proudly. Can't believe it looks pretty much the same as I remember from my youth.

Once I arrived at Holgate I found a pristine beach. To get out to the end of the island is about a 2 mile walk. I was hoping to find some Piping Plovers had arrived to take up residence. I walked out about a mile seeing nary a bird on the beach but found a seahorse on the beach along with some beautiful shells. There were a few Long-tailed ducks riding the waves along with some loons.