Elephant Seals and the Big Sur…

Before leaving the Paso Robles area we took one other blog worthy trip to north on Highway 1 to the Big Sur area. The drive along this part of California’s coastline is one of the more scenic areas and we were blessed with clear blue skies. The main goal on this drive was to visit the Elephant Seals that come ashore for only a few months to breed, give birth and molt. They come to the same spot near Piedras Blancas Beach in the southern part of the Big Sur close to the town of San Simeon.

  

These beautiful creatures were thought to be extinct in the 1880’s and they were very nearly hunted to extinction (primarily for their oil-rich blubber). They have been making a strong comeback thanks to the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Elephant seals are sexually dimorphic, that is the males are lot bigger than their lady partners. The ladies get to 9-12 feet in length and weigh up to 1800 pounds while the males grow up to 16 feet and weigh between 3000 to 5000 pounds.

  

We were not disappointed as the seals where lounging around on the beach in every size from very young to elder statesman. Listening to their guttural growls, grunts and bleats while watching them scoot along the sand to get to a better spot was very entertaining. They would use their flippers to throw sand on their backs to help them warm up after swimming in the cold Pacific waters. With faces only a mother could love they simply lounged around and enjoyed the warm sand. While watching the seals we even saw another large group of whales offshore but not anywhere near as close as those were that we saw at Avila Beach.

 

To learn more about these large seals visit Friends of the Elephant Seal which is a non-profit organization “dedicated to educating people about elephant seals and other marine life and to teaching stewardship for the ocean off the central coast of California”.

The drive from Paso Robles south to Lake Elsinore was one of our longest travel days in some time as we drove 273 miles. The main reason we traveled so far was that I really wanted to get all the way around Los Angeles and have it in my rear view mirror. We took 46 east from Paso Robles and took the Interstate 5 south. As we approached LA the number of lanes on the highway went up to seven per side and the traffic increased. We took Interstate 210 to skirt to the north and east of LA and for the most part traffic wasn’t too bad, considering this is LA.

We pulled into a Passport America Park with 50 amps and full hookups all for the amazing rate of only $15.00. A great spot for us to recover for a few days before moving a few miles south today...