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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. I split up day 8 in two parts as I didn't write for day 9 (it was a straight shot home)

Day 8, part 1

For breakfast we ate two types of cereal from 2 small boxes from a sample kit with milk from the cooler. We put it on two shallow plates so it wasn't the easiest way to eat. We broke up the tent and loaded everything in the car when I noticed that I had locked the car but had left the driver's seat window fully open and my GoPro was stuck on the window. Then I realized it was like that yesterday the whole time when we were at the Aquarium. Oh well, everything was still there and campers are born good, right?

First we headed to a coffee shop to get a latte for me and an ice tea for Katie. I missed the part when "medium latte!" Was announced because a lady stood at the pick up spot and took a picture of the (my) latte. Weird. So I thought it was hers. When I asked whether it was mine and they confirmed I noticed a heart was made in the foam. Still weird though because that was not the first time in the history of the world a barista had performed that art. Ah well, maybe for her it was.

We hit the road again. I decided to skip Big Sur, because we would have to take a big detour after that which would have added many more hours to our trip. I didn't want to drive too far (too many hours) today, so we would have enough beach time or time for something else. I definitely wanted Katie to see the elephant seals north of San Simeon, so I decided to take 101 south, 46 west and 1 north. That would only take 2.5 hours. After that the plan was to find a campground near the ocean in Morro Bay.

We arrived at the elephant sea vista point and Katie was asleep. Unfortunately she is grouchy most of the time when you wake her up so she wasn't too excited to see the animals. Still, they are quite impressive and two of them were fighting or playing in the ocean. I said "I wonder where the stairs to the beach are so we can pet them". She didn't fall for that and hit me in the tummy.

It was time for lunch and we headed to Cavalier restaurant.While waiting for the food I looked for a campground near Morro Bay. It was less than 30 minutes of a drive. I asked Katie if she wanted to go to the beach which was a negative. "Would you mind driving a bit more so we have less driving to tomorrow?" Tomorrow we were heading back home. She wouldn't mind another 90 minutes to two hours she said. Me neither so I checked where that would bring us. Solvang! That cute little Danish town. That was only 105 minutes. I checked Priceline and there was one room for a little over $100 in downtown Solvang. Done.

We passed through Morro Bay and Morro Rock was clearly visible. I told Katie that that used to be a volcano and that there are a few more of those more or less in a straight line from each other. They were probably all connected to a huge magma chamber. "What is the difference between magma and lava, daddy?" she asked. I said that they are both molten rock but the only difference is that one is underground and the other above. "Why don't they then just call it the same, either magma or lava all the time?" "I don't know" I replied. "Well, she said, maybe magma is much hotter as it is underground and lava is cooler because it is exposed to air". My little scientist.