San Simeon was originally just a waypoint to break up the driving into reasonable chunks of time. But when I started researching it more, the location had two interesting tourist features: Hearst Castle and elephant seals. While touring the extravagances of Hearst Castle might've been interesting for Zac and me, taking the kids there would've been a nightmare. If they couldn't behave at a botanical garden, we didn't stand a chance in a fancy castle. It ended up being closed anyway due to the road up to the castle needing repaired.
So that left us with the seals. After checking out of our hotel, we drove about 20 minutes north, retracing some of the scenic route we'd done in the dark the night before, and found a roadside parking lot for the Piedras Blancas Rookery, where you could see the blubbery beasts sunning themselves in the sand. It was really fun to watch them galumphing on the sand, but the kids got quickly bored since they weren't allowed on the beach to climb around or dig. Plus, the morning wind off the ocean was freezing. I also think they're a bit spoiled by all the nature videos they watch that have narrators, music, and close-ups of the animals doing interesting or funny things. Simply watching a bunch of creatures laying around just wasn't entertaining enough for them.
So, we drove to our next destination about an hour south, still along the coast: Morro Rock. I picked this place because it looked cool, and it had a beach and lots of rocks. This would be our last day on the California coast before heading inland for a week.
The sheltered Morro Bay, right in front of our parking spot, immediately proved interesting, as Simon and Alice spotted sea stars and sea cucumbers in the shallow clear waters.
Then we walked down a path along the southern side of Morro Rock, where the kids had fun climbing boulders that had either fallen off or were blasted off Morro Rock.
The kids loved scampering around on the boulders by the sea and climbing partway up the side of Morro Rock (look for the spots of color in the picture below).
To me, it was freezing cold with the wind, but the kids just can't resist a beach!
They had fun finding sand dollars and crabs along the beach and in the tide pools in the rocks.
Eventually, we walked around to the northern side of the rock, and ate our lunch while trying to defend it from seagulls and rock squirrels. Here's a video Alice made of our attackers.
After lunch, the kids ran around on the broad shallow beach until they were wet and freezing. Then we got them rinsed off and into fresh, dry clothes (no small feat) for the two hour drive inland to Tulare. The drive was kind of bizarre. I hadn't expected California to have so much empty space for some reason.
We got to Tulare and first stopped at Blaze Pizza to fuel ourselves, then we gassed up the car and got more groceries, since we'd spend the next two days in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park. There was nothing particular in Tulare, it was just a waypoint, the last major town to stop in for provisions before the park. We had an excellent and cheap hotel in Tulare. The secret, apparently, is to stay near a highway interchange in a non-tourist town.
