Jan. 19 Day 10 - sunny, clear, very warm in the sun

We pulled out of the Fairgrounds RV Park @ 10:00 @ 156191km and into Costco for gas @ 10:10 @ 156193km, and out @ 10:20.  We reached the Golden Gate Bridge at 11:15. The toll has gone up since we were here several years ago, we count as 4 axels, toll $24.00!  We exited to Hwy 1 and drove over to the coast road.  It took about a half hour to get through the San Francisco suburbs to the water.  We drove past lots of colourful, row houses with ornate, wrought iron balconies, bay windows & gingerbread-decorated gables.  Once on the coast, it was a nice drive with views of surf crashing onto the beaches. We stopped at a pull-off for lunch in the RV 12:40- 1:35, then continued down the road, arriving at Ana Nuevo State Preserve, (where the Northern Elephant Seal Breeding grounds are), at 1:55 @ 156360 km. We took a guided 3 mi. walking tour down to the beach.  It was covered in Elephant seals, mostly females with small black pups, but there were some very large males,(bulls) lying around on the outside guarding their harems.  The bulls are huge—14-16 ft. long & almost 2½ tons, they dwarf the females who are only a mere 800-1600 lbs & 8-10 ft. long!  The females arrive here in early December and birth the pups they carried since last Dec.  The pups, 70 lbs. at birth, nurse on their mother’s very rich, (up to 55% fat), milk for about 28 days until they’re 250-300 lbs.  Then, their mother leaves them to learn to swim & fend for themselves and she returns to the ocean until moulting time—sometime between April & November.  Before she leaves, however, she mates with one or more bulls in order to get pregnant & repeat the cycle next year.

We spent lots of time observing them & trying to take photos--difficult because a lot of them were more than 50 yards away, & we were shooting into the sun.   We finally left the park at 6:00 pm and headed to the Elks in Santa Cruz, arriving at 6:30 @ 156396 km.  The Elks lodge was deserted—no one in sight, but Sheila found the box with the registration forms so we drove to the camping area which was deserted except for one RV.   We hooked up to the power & water, and then looked up “food” in the GPS.  It listed the Santa Cruz Diner less than a mile away.  It was a great place--the food was good, the servers friendly and it was cheap. We both had the Fisherman’s Platter with a white fish, shrimp, calamari, clam strips plus veggies, rice & an amazingly good clam chowder for $8.99 each.  We returned home for an early night.  We are both tired after all the walking involved in the seal tour.

Traveled 205 km – 127 mi