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California Road Trip 2019

In the summer of 2019 I took my daughter on another road trip from San Francisco to Carlsbad.

Day 5

When I woke up I heard the fog horn in the distance and knew Morro Rock was probably going to be covered in fog again. I was hoping for a more clear day so I could see the rock in its completeness but that wasn’t the case. We drove to a small breakfast restaurant at the Embarcadero to have pancakes and waffles. 

Katie and I then went for a walk and I snapped some pictures of the rock from one of the piers. After that we headed over to the rock itself. Looking back, you could hardly see the town. The smokestacks of the power plant looked interesting coming through the mist with the sun behind it. We both took our cameras out and walked along the south side of Morro Rock. At the beach we noticed a junior lifeguard camp in full action with kids running around. 

When we walked towards the north side and went across the parking area, we noticed four sea gulls sitting down on the ground. They were quite far apart but were almost lined up perfectly. I explained to Katie that with a long lens this may be an interesting photo when taken low to the ground. She switched lenses like a pro again, putting on her 70-300mm lens and took some shots. They turned out well!

When we got to the water on the north side of the rock, of course she noticed dogs and took lots of pictures of them. I took some shots of the lifeguard tower that was there, as the lifeguards just arrived. I was contemplating going into the ocean at some point, but all the surfers were wearing wetsuits and there was nobody in the water without one, so I guess it was too cold.

I told Katie that I had an idea for a particular shot: I wanted to take vertical pictures of the power plant with my long lens, which I would stitch together later. But I needed my tripod for that which was in the trunk of the car. After we got the tripod we walked to the bay side and I couldn’t believe my eyes: there were tons of sea otters in the water close to the shore floating among the kelp. Twenty-nine of them to be exact (Katie counted them). So instead of going for my panorama I started taking lots of pictures of them, and so did Katie. At some point I told Katie that we needed to stop, because we were using up all the memory on our cards and there wouldn’t be anything left for something else. But I kept taking photographs and at some point Katie repeated what I had said about the memory cards. I did my power plant pano and we left. 

Now we were heading for Paso Robles.

We arrived at noon at the City Park and walked around it for a little bit. It was time for lunch and we chose a Thai restaurant on one of the side streets.

While we were waiting for our food, I looked up wineries in the nearby countryside as I was eager to get some wine country shots. So many to choose from, so I picked a winery on Google Maps far away from where we were and asked for directions: that would at least take us on some set route, without having to drive around clueless. 

After lunch we started on our route. Quickly the landscape changed and I got excited about my wine country shots. Plenty of vineyards as far as we could see! We stopped at a road that was going up a small hill. We both took some photos of the surrounding landscape with rows of vines extending in all directions and old oak trees scattered among them. 

A UPS truck showed up and the driver asked us what we were taking pictures off. We explained that we were looking for good wine country shots and I asked him if he perhaps knew other view points. He mentioned Hollyhock Lane, which was a little further down the main road. First I misspelled the name of the road, but while driving I saw the street name sign and took the turn. 

I pulled over to the side of the road and we both snapped away. I love how the rows of vines create curvy lines in the landscape around us. Katie took some close-ups of grapes and told me I should do the same. She helped me found some that were sunlit. 

We were now driving on unpaved roads and suddenly we saw a bunch of deer and deer babies between some trees and Katie captured them on camera. Next we were driving up a steep hill. It was a little too steep so I parked the car and we walked uphill. A deer jumped up and ran away. At the top you could probably see 50 miles away. 

After a short stop at the Mission San Miguel Arcángel (it was closed) we headed back to Morro Bay. At the end of the day we ate at a Mexican restaurant because Katie’s all-time favorite food are tacos.