Morro Bay

Morro Bay is probably without a doubt my favorite place to visit. I love that there is still ample wildlife and the RV Park is ideally situated for walking or biking down to the marina. The foghorn is a delight to hear and the sounds of harbor seals barking and seagulls arguing makes me smile. Today I photographed Sea Otters and Snowy Egrets and had a blast. Michael cleaned up the Tracker and the outside of our RV and I cleaned the inside yesterday. We had a BBQ last night and Michael grilled fresh halibut. Callie is getting in a couple of walks a day and there is plenty of sunshine and fresh salty air to go around. We will be leaving for Encinitas on Tuesday.

Returning South

Callie, Michael and I are returning south again after a 6-day stay at Carmel by the River RV Park in Carmel. It was a splurge and quite pricey but the grounds are beautiful and the resort well situated off the beaten path. I was able to do a lot of photography and we biked every day and visited Big Sur one day. There is construction on Highway 1 which backed traffic up for about a 30-minute delay, but there is nothing like the drive along this rugged coastline.

We are staying at Cypress RV Park now in Morro Bay and I highly recommend it. The grounds are clean and the bathrooms immaculate. The owners are friendly and Callie is able to walk around on a leash and check out the other sites. There should be ample opportunity for photographing otters and herons in the bay and I am excited about that.

Toys R Us

I have been feeling rather guilty about packing so few toys for Callie on our RV trips, so I decided to invest in a few more after taking Callie to our vet. Dr. Stephens is here in Morro Bay, and is a wonderful vet and was able to finally give Callie a diagnosis of asthma about 9 months ago. She had a bad cough for over a year and was treated for viral pneumonia for months but a cough would always return after the antibiotic was finished. We are now convinced it is asthma and not the other and every once in awhile we apply a steroid cream to the ear flap if she starts to cough.

We took her to the vet this morning because she also has a chronic itchy ear condition that won’t go away. She shakes her head and scratches at her ears and I believe it contributes to her cough when she gets a tickle in her throat. Dr. Stephens thinks it may be food allergies and put her on Science Diet- Venison and Peas. She can’t have any other food because the chicken I have been preparing for her along with Science Diet Oral Care contains chicken and chicken is a known allergen. Go figure!

On the way back from the vet, we dropped by Albertson’s to buy groceries and I picked out a couple of new toys for Callie to play with. When we returned from the vet and shopping, I wore her out with snapping a wand toy on a ribbon at her, and she played with two fur balls with feathers attached to them for about 15 minutes.

She is now sound asleep after a serving of venison and peas and a round of rough and tumble playtime.

A Story Worth Telling

I mistakingly called the crow a raven in an earlier post, but I have since learned that he or she is a crow. This particular crow is so big that surely it must be a raven, but no, crows have just grown bigger in size and weight since my childhood years. I used to live by the Santa Ana River bottom in a city aptly called, Riverside, and there was a large garbage dump alongside of it. In my youth, my sisters and I boarded horses at this mostly dry riverbed, and the murder of crows would darken the sky as they flew past us in large numbers, always heading east in the morning and west at sunset. Those crows were not nearly as large as the ones living here in Morro Bay. I also remember huge flocks of seagulls scavenging at the dump. What a memory jog! They too would fill the sky with the sound of screeching and wings flapping as they fought over scraps of garbage and debris.

The neighbor across the street, who I had a chance to speak to about this matter, feeds the crow a slice of bread or sandwich meat a couple of times a day while the crow hangs out on the telephone wire and caws a friendly greeting to him. But the seagull who has joined the crow is an opportunistic feeder and the man must discourage the relationship now because he or she is a Shit Hawk, as my salty sailor of a brother calls them, and his neighbors have complained about all of the poop. So the seagull is no longer welcome here, but the crow still is, making it difficult for the seagull to give up hope of ever acquiring another free meal.

This morning while Callie sat on the dash of the RV, she was able to watch the man shoo the seagull away and throw the slice of bread high up in the air for the crow to catch. The crow snatched the bread midflight and then flew away, delighted with his breakfast. Yesterday afternoon, the seagull happened to nab a slice of meat before the crow was able to grab it, and then landed on the street, quite smugly, to eat the stolen food. But the very smart crow was not to be discouraged and dove down one more time and snatched it back, and rightfully so, from the unsuspecting Shit Hawk’s beak!

I think that the crow is smarter than the seagull, but the two have met their match and it is an ongoing saga, with the drama unfolding on a daily basis, that makes it worthy of a story worth telling. They both hang out across the street from where the RV is parked, with the crow on the wire and the seagull on the telephone post or pacing nervously on the ground down below. Sometimes they have friends that join them and they all compete for a chance to grab a free snack. Callie loves being entertained by it all and watches the scene unfold on the dash in real-time only, as she places a silent bet on who will be the next one to take the prize.

Homeward Stretch

We are returning south to Anza- Borrego Desert State Park on Friday and will stay in Morro Bay for a couple of nights before heading to Malibu. Lara, our daughter has a job interview with Interpret LLC on Friday and we thought it best to fit it in on the way back instead of having her drive back to Los Angeles. She met the president of the company when she was at the GDC18 in San Fransisco and will now get an interview with his company. He checked out her resume when they met with her friend, Laura, and found it very interesting. Lara is fluent in Japanese and moderately so in Mandarin and we think that and her math and computer skills along with music and art put her in good standing for this marketing firm.

The drive from Pillar Point to Morro Bay was spectacular and the North and Central California coastline are experiencing a super-bloom. We walked down to the marina last night and checked out the herons that fish along the rocky shore and on the dockside and watched the sunset. Callie loves it here and sits by her personal heater in order to stay warm. We always walk down to the rock and bike over toward Cayucos. It is bright and sunny out but very chilly. There is a warming trend developing and no rain in sight. What a wonderful couple of weeks we have had.

Meet Austin from Texas

As many of you who have been reading my blog posts on Callie the cat, you know that she hates other cats, that is except the mystery cat that I have dubbed “Romeo!” So cats can’t walk into her line of vision or she screams in fear and outrage, but if a dog drops by, she can’t wait to greet it. I don’t know whether she was raised with dogs as a kitten, I adopted her as a stray at approximately 3 years of age, or whatever, but she lights up at the image of a dog coming her way. She especially likes dogs that have already been introduced to cats and knows their evil ways, because she will raise up her paw ever so slightly just to see if she can get a rise out of the dog.

Austin and his owner came around the corner to go for a walk and the elderly, senior dog, Austin had his leash in his mouth as he quietly ambled along. When he spotted Callie sitting up high and mighty on top of the picnic table, he dropped his leash and attempted to back out of the confining corner and return to where he had come from. He didn’t want to walk past Callie and to make her mad and was acting quite deferential. The owner, whose name I didn’t catch, of course, went back to get Austin and they were then introduced with a quick touch of the nose. I didn’t have my camera ready and was as surprised as Austin when Callie ever so slightly raised up her paw. Austin jerked his head back right away and Callie delighted in his frightened response.

After that, Austin refused to make any more eye contact with her and kept a safe distance alongside his owner’s legs. But Callie, on the other hand, couldn’t get enough of this handsome hunk and she was begging him to come just a little closer for her to get another look. He would have nothing more to do with her though. One shot at it was all that Callie was going to be rewarded, and she blew it. She lost her chance to touch noses again with this beautiful golden lab from Texas.

Half Moon Bay

Our drive to Half Moon Bay was delightful and Callie enjoyed the entire trip hanging out on the dash and playing co-captain. The bright yellow mustard and fiddleneck flowers are blooming everywhere and cover the fields alongside Highway 1. It has been raining all of last week and it will start raining again tomorrow, so new growth is abundant and prolific blooms carpet the hillsides in fields of gold.

We stopped by an Albertson’s in Morro Bay before we headed out of town and stocked up on groceries and supplies because we are set to hang out in Half Moon Bay for a week. The GDC18 Game Developers Conference is being held at the Moscone Conference Center in San Fransisco and our adult daughter is going to attend. Half Moon Bay RV Park is only 30 miles away, so we rented a car and will take her to the conference and pick her up while we play in the city.

Half Moon Bay RV Park is basically a dirt parking lot but the bathrooms and showers are clean, spacious, AND with plenty of hot water to use without worrying about putting quarters into a slot makes it worthy of 5 stars. When you arrive at the RV Park you are greeted by 3 cats and a retired bright red, British double-decker bus with Christmas lights blinking on and off. Seeing as it is the middle of March, it is rather eccentric, but we were welcomed warmly and put in space #7 with Fred next door in space #6 alongside a tall hedge of fragrant juniper or cypress for privacy.

Our daughter Lara earned a Ph.D. in Physiology in 2017, but it was not her passion and she wants to explore the possibility of becoming a producer in the gaming industry. She is gifted in multiple languages, computer science, computer graphics, writing, and mathematics. I believe she can do whatever her heart and soul desires so we are trying to be very supportive. She is our only daughter and we want her to be in a work environment that makes her heart sing with joy, but pays well too! I don’t think that it is too tall of an order considering her vast talents.

Today it will be clear and sunny but will rain the rest of the week, so I will make sure to get Callie out for a walk to explore her surroundings. Last night we hiked to the beach and watched a glorious sunset turn from a silvery lilac and yellow to lavender, red and molten orange. It was magnificent, to say the least. The shoreline was practically empty of people and the sand was a coarse bleached, pale off-white; this was perfect conditions for photography, and I took full advantage of the evening.

Wake up- Let’s go for a Walk!

It has been rather cold and rainy this past week in Morro Bay, and Callie isn’t exactly enamored with the weather, but she is game for a walk as soon as I can entice her to go outside. The sun was shining for a little while this morning, so Callie was able to close her eyes and inhale all of the delightful scents after a sky cleansing shower. Jasmine is blooming across the street and you can get a faint whiff of this gorgeous smelling flower when you head toward the marina. When you get closer to the blooms, the scent is intoxicating.

We are spending one more night at Cypress RV Park and will take the 3.5-hour drive to Half- Moon Bay tomorrow morning. I am looking forward to exploring new territory and I am sure Callie is too. This RV Park isn’t the best place for walking a cat, she prefers a few more trees and the gravel here hurts her dainty paws.

Morro Bay is very Bike Friendly

Morro Bay is a fabulous place to cycle and hike in. The community is very bike friendly and a coastal trail for walking and biking extends for many miles. We have taken the trail to Cayucos on Highway 1 which had some traffic on it but the shoulder is spacious and I didn’t feel too uncomfortable. I do not like to share the road with cars and that is why biking in the desert is so appealing to me.

The nature sanctuary trail is also wonderful and there are viewing benches to observe birds such as the endangered Snowy Plover. The sand dunes have nesting areas cordoned off and these adorable little shorebirds are treated with respect and courtesy and given prime site sanctuary locations in which to raise their young without being stepped on and trampled. I love this about Morro Bay; they are very pro-wildlife and try to give local and migratory animals a place to thrive in alongside us humans.

If you are staying in Morro Bay and wish to bike north, head down to Morro Rock and follow the boardwalk north of town until you pass the water treatment plant. Right before you bike underneath the Highway 1 bridge, turn left into the high school and follow the paved path on the west side of the highway. This trail will take you to Morro Strand State Beach and from there you can hook up to the 1 and follow that North to Cayucos. If you wish to bike south, Morro Bay State Park is another great place to bike around in. I don’t recommend going to Montana de Oro by bike because of the narrow roadway, but it is an incredible place in which to hike along the sand dunes. Biking through town is also fun because the cars go slowly and there is a bike path.

I have a front loading handlebar basket that I use for Callie and she loves biking but it has been too rainy and she has had to be left behind in the RV. I don’t think she minds all that much though. When we return, I find her in the same position as when we left. She seems to really enjoy all the activity of RVing and there is never a dull moment. She can rest on the dash and watch people walking their dogs or she can jump up into the loft for privacy and take an uninterrupted nap.

Morro Bay has a fabulous bike repair and rental shop called – The Bike Shop that is on Main Street in town and my husband bought an off-road Raleigh bike for me last time we stayed here. I love this bike and use it off-roading in Anza- Borrego Desert State Park. We have been coming to Morro Bay for 40 years now and this sleepy fishing community hasn’t changed all that much. It is a great place for walking, hiking, kayaking, fishing, and windsurfing.

Callie is a Rock Star

The new harness that I purchased for Callie at Petco two weeks ago has passed the test with flying colors. Not only does she look like a rock star, she IS a rock star. It looks adorable on her, and the harness which is like a vest appears to be much more secure and seems very comfortable to boot. The other harness was about 5 years old and if she put her mind to it, she could wriggle out of it in seconds flat. You could not take your eyes off of her just in case she panicked and started to back up. If that happened, it was best to release the tension on the leash so that she didn’t use it to tuck her elbows under the strap in order to free herself.

We took a lovely walk around the RV park and Callie seemed quite proud of herself. The rain has finally subsided so I will be able to walk her again later today. It has been raining on and off since we arrived in Morro Bay, but that hasn’t stopped us from having a fabulous time. It is a warm southern storm that is dumping a consistent soft rain that sounds beautiful on the roof of the RV. Callie loves it when it rains and she has a view from the upper left window to look out at. Of course, she has to nestle herself in between the rungs of the ladder.on the loft bed- that is so cat like!