C&J Road Rave 2014-2015 : Montaña de Oro State Park

Friday, December 12, 2014

Thursday, dark clouds filled the sky over our campground. The rain started at 9 pm and continued into Friday morning. The KOA worker told us this tree limb (near his campsite) came down at 1am in the morning. The following photos are from the area behind our trailers.

Same tree, another view

The tree limb fell onto the roof of the home.

Palm tree seems to be saying "storm?" "what storm?"

Opposite side of the campground
We lost power around 9 pm. It was still out at 10:30 the next morning. We switched our fridge to propane so no concern about our food spoiling.

Friday, we drove to Montaña de Oro State Park, a 15 minute drive south of Morro Bay.
We hiked the Valencia Peak Trail, a 4 mile round trip.

Neither spotted!

View of first hill from trail

Oceanic rock (this rock was formed on the bottom of an ocean between 5 and 6 million years ago)

Along some of the trail we clambered over rocks.

Surveying our progress

The line through the hills shows our trail.

The photos above and below show other park trails that came into view as we climbed higher.

View of the valley

Our trail along the ridge

Views from the trail

Views from the summit

That's Morro Rock and the city of Morro Bay in the distance.

We returned to the trailhead, crossed the road next to our parking lot, and walked the Bluff Trail.

This is a Great Egret (heron). S/he is bigger than the snowy egrets we saw on Pismo Beach. Great Egrets have a yellow beak and black feet which distinguishes them from the snowy egrets. Snowy Egrets have black beaks and yellow feet.