Shakedown Cruise to Morro Bay, CA

We hope no one is startled or alarmed by our first post in 8 months.  Mostly this has been because we haven't been doing anything interesting.  

Virus lockdown is hard to blog about.

Because of the virus, our plans to visit the Calgary Stampede, Canada's Banff National Park, and the Canadian Rockies were completely abandoned / cancelled.  Merikay cleverly waited for our Canadian hosts to cancel each reservation, so that we did not pay penalties.  

Craig had several medical appointments in San Diego in February.  First these were delayed by Scripps Clinics into March, but as they approached, he was spooked by fear of Coronavirus in hospitals, and postponed them into July which was the latest that the Scripps software would allow.  As these have gotten close, Scripps has postponed one again, and Craig has postponed another to next fall.

As the pandemic started to look less scary, Merikay developed "hitch itch" and has planned trips to the Oregon coastline in calendar August and September.  Because our Alfa hasn't gone anywhere for 8 months, she also planned a 2-day "shakedown cruise" to Morro Bay CA, which is the subject of this blog.

Tuesday we drove from our Jojoba Hills "winter home" to Morro Dunes RV Park in Morro Bay.  Nothing went wrong!  

Today we went for a good-sized hike past Morro Rock, the biggest thing in town, and down the tourist-oriented Embarcadero.  Here's Morro Rock, the last in a chain of long-extinct volcanoes know as the Morros:

The rock was used as a source of breakwater material up and down the California coast, which has forever changed its shape.

The other big thing in town includes three beautiful chimneys!  It's probably a generating plant.

Our next encounter was with sea otters sleeping in the ocean.

Further out in the water was what Merikay said were two other otters who were working on creating new otters.  

Craig thinks it may have been one otter who was having some kind of problem.  If you have an opinion which of us is right, share it in the comments at the end...

Later, on our way back past the observation area, they had joined the first pair for a post-coital nap.

Morro Bay has a Coast Guard station that provides rescue, customs, and law-enforcement services.  For some reason, we have noticed that Coast Guard station buildings seem to be designed by committees that don't favor symmetry:

Here are two of their boats, which for historical reasons are called "cutters":

Morro Bay also includes a modest marina.  The rear Coast Guard cutter above also snuck into the background of this image:

We saw lots of shops and services along the Morro Bay Embarcadero, including fisheries, seafood restaurants and markets, diving and surfing places, gift shops, boat and kayak rentals, and harbor cruise tours.  Unfortunately none of them inspired our photographer to record them.  But one of them may have provided this very long canoe, which is shown against a small island or long sand bar, off-shore from the Embarcadero:

On our way back, we noticed these scenic dwellings on the shore side of the Embarcadero:

We won't post another blog for a month or so, while Craig goes through his medical matters.  Hopefully we'll have stories from the Oregon coast in August and Septermber.  Reservations have been made!