Blog

California Road Trip

In the summer of 2018 I took my daughter on a 9-day road trip through California. Here is our little story.

Day 7

Today we got up early because the drive to Monterey was going to be almost 4 hours, not counting stops. We ate the cereal we bought yesterday and after that we were on the road at 7:30am. My plan was to follow the CA-1 as much as possible, ignoring Google Maps' directions. I stopped at several locations along the coast to take some pictures, including Jenner and Sonoma Coast State Park. We passed the campground at Bodega Bay - the one we wanted to go to yesterday - with a sign "full ". Good thing we stayed at the lodge.

We drove along Tomales Bay and stopped at Point Reyes Station for a latte and a pastry for Katie and I. While I was walking back to the car I noticed that it said "No Barking" several times on the side of an abandoned building. Somebody changed the "P" in a "B" but it was very well done. I took some shots of it and noticed another photographer doing the same. I walked back to the car but turned around again because I wanted a parked car in front of it in the same shot.

Near Stinson Beach we stopped to look at a hundred or so seals resting on the sand. There were a few pups too. Here we ate our pastries. Instead of following the 1 all the way I took the Panoramic Highway which runs through Mount Tamalpais State Park. It is a very dense beautiful forest and I recorded part of the way with the GoPro on the windshield. We reached the 101 and while going over the Golden Gate Bridge I ran the GoPro again. Now we were going straight through San Francisco which slowed usdown a bit.

The rest of the way was pretty eventless and we reached the campground at Veterans Memorial Park around 1:30pm. I was worried it also would be full, but fortunately there were lots of vacancies. Later an Uber driver told us it's a little known campground. Another driver had never heard of it. We picked our spot and self-reserved it. We set up the tent, locked the car and summoned an Uber to go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I accidentally put the pin in a wrong location for the Uber driver to pick us up. She then called me to confirm where I was. Katie said: "You do realize now, daddy, that she will probably rate you either 3 or 4 stars?"  

On the way to the aquarium we chatted about our California road trip. The driver asked us if we had been to the Ice Cream Museum in San Francisco. We hadn't and she told us how fun it is. So that is on our list for our next visit to SF. When we exited the car Katie said "Okay I think she will rate you probably 4 stars".

It was super busy at the aquarium. I told Katie that if we would get separated, she should go to an aquarium employee and call me. The penguin feeding was coming up but it was just too busy so we went to the sea otters first. She loved those! They are indeed very cute and very difficult to take good photos of. We ended up 2 times more at the sea otter exhibit. She asked if I could print and frame one of my sea otter shots to put in her room. At the bat ray exhibit she didn't want to pet them. I loved the big aquarium that is 3 stories high with lots of kelp and local fauna in it, such as leopard sharks, garibaldi and an enormous sea bass, of whom I took a video and some photos because he/she came right around the corner close to the glass. The octopus was also active and impressive.

We then had dinner along the coast and ubered back to the campground. The driver told us that all the water (except the water used in tropical exhibits) is pumped from the ocean, used in the exhibits and pumped back. The aquarium also grows their own kelp.

Back at the campground we both ended the day drawing. Katie drew an exhibit where dogs, cats and sea otters live together whereas I drew a little tree next to our campsite. We went to sleep when it started to get dark.