Salinas/Monterey KOA

Salinas/Monterey KOA was an overpriced RV parking lot. The pool was was freezing and thus useless; Jordan's purple lips made me sad.

We were squeezed in between our neighbors so tightly that we did not feel comfortable sitting outside. The campground sits right in the armpit of two major highways and thus the air and noise pollution were problems.

Michael's nightly asthma and allergy episodes started here. Crime was present, which was evidenced by all the sirens, the arrest outside the RV Park and the bike that was stolen from us in the middle of the night. Nope, no one was sad to leave and continue our journey.

However, there are some notable items... well, just one. The game room was very nice. All the kids improved their ping pong, foosball and pool games. Fortunately, we did not come here for the KOA but for places outside of the park.

On Palm Sunday, we attended Gateway Church - Hollister. Caleb and Jordan loved getting Resurrection Eggs and doing a balloon science experiment. After church, we passed by a huge motorcycle rally on the way to Pinnacles National Park - East. After our picnic at the visitor center, we discovered squirrels that dig tunnels all over the ground, thus they are called ground squirrels.

A baby ground squirrel!

We also learned that Acorn Woodpeckers make holes in trees and fill them with acorns! It was funny to see this tree covered in holes stuffed with acorns. I have seen so many of them flying around in California.

We hiked the Moses Spring Trail and found water coming out of a rock. It made me think of Moses in the Bible, but I am guessing that one gushed; here, it was a trickle. Next, we continued our hike to the Bear Gulch Cave Trail. We used flashlights when we went in the talus caves. 

                                  

At the top of some steps we found a... water reservoir? I wasn't expecting that in such a dry rocky land. The ground squirrels eating the reeds by the water was so very adorable. Jordan loved watching the lizards crawl around on the rocks. The boys just climbed the rocks.

On the trail, we discovered manzanita trees. They look like someone painted just parts of them with a thick dark red paint!

We thought the finale to our hike was some deer just off the path eating some vegetation. However, once we got back to the parking lot, we noticed big dark birds flying overhead. With binoculars, we were able to tell that two of them were special vultures called condors, (the rest were just regular vultures.) A Pinnacles sign read that it had 33 condors in 2015. Online, I found that there are 25 condors at Pinnacles this year. All them are tagged and Michael was able to see one of the tags with binoculars!

At school this week, we started studying WW2  and so on Friday we watched The Sound of Music while we ate pizza, our Friday night tradition. I forgot that this movie is 3 hours long. Jordan was up and ready to do her egg hunt early the next day. Yes, her egg hunt. She used the resurrection eggs she got from church and stuffed them with candy she bought with her own money. She loved every minute. She lovingly gave me notes of love and encouragement in my eggs! There is something wonderful about finding a note that says, "I love you" or "You're a happy camper!" Caleb bought Jordan a sweet surprise of Bubble Tape so she had something to open too! 

Afterwards, I took the kids out so Michael could take a nap. We went to a fruit stand and picked up a double flat of ripe strawberries, some oranges and three artichokes (3 for $1!) I love artichokes and Castroville, CA grows so many fields of artichokes right by the roads. We could see the artichokes growing on our drive! Castroville produces 95% of the nation's artichokes. YUM! Next, we stopped at McDonalds for some treats. Last, we picked up some donuts for Easter.

                                         

Sunday was Easter! Jesus has risen! We celebrated at Shoreline Church. They had more donuts here. 

Here are Spot and Thumper on Easter not eating donuts!

                           

After church, we hopped on California 1 and went to Big Sur. It is a 71 mile stretch down this highway. Starting at Monterey, we drove a few miles and pulled off to explore this beautiful rocky coast!

                                    

The kids loved the climbable rocks. The crabs crammed themselves into the crevices and there were many purple sea urchins. We continued the very windy Highway 1 and went over some bridges, including the famous Bixby Creek Bridge.

Our next stop was Big Sur Pfeiffer State Park. As we walked to the Nature Center, we crossed a bridge and there we saw... our first Coastal Redwood Trees. Wow! They took my breath away. They are huge and these didn't even have a sign or name or anything special about them.

After the kids soared like Condors doing the Visitor's Center's VR game, we hiked to Pfeiffer Falls. When we got there, this Steller's Jay came over to us while the kids worked on their Junior Ranger Books! 

                  

We learned that these small pinecones make these huge trees! Once the kids turned in their books, we went to see the Old Colonial Tree on the way to a creek. The kids made boats and played.

  

We enjoyed listening to our GyPSyGuide App while we drove. Parker, our guide, told us to take the next turn out to go down a trail through an old tunnel that leads to the coast. What an adventure! We loved exploring the tidepools. On this whole trip to Big Sur, Jordan spotted over 80 crabs. It was splendid!

                                    

We continued as far south as Julia Pfeiffer State Park. We drove about 40 miles of Big Sur in all. We parked on the road and did a short trail to McWay Falls. See the picture below to see the falls spilling onto the beach. A couple of gulls were taking a bath in the water. During high tide, the falls pour directly into the ocean.

 

On the way back, we took a road less traveled called the Old Coastal Road. Asher had found this beginner off-roading trail on All Trails. It was a dirt road with good sized ditches. We got our Jeep dirty for the 1st time! It took an hour to drive 10 miles. We saw cows on the road, quail, deer and beautiful Coastal Redwoods too. We would not have been able to do this road in the van. We definitely would have been stuck between two Redwoods in the RV.

The view of the Bixby Creek Bridge was really pretty.

We had tickets to the Monterey Aquarium on Wednesday! The bike was found missing that morning as we were heading to the car. Someone stole our bike, I was not about to let them steal this day too. I fought back the tears. Let's go...

Yes, I love seeing and learning more about what God has made! Praise him! Here is a taste of these cool creatures...

These Dr. Seuss looking plants are called Giant White-Plumed Anemones

I wasn't the only one loving this place.

We had found some of these guys at the beach, but they were always curled up in their shells. It was so cool to see them out in in their element doing what God made them to do!

The new exhibit, Into the Deep, just opened and gave us a front row seat to view these creatures that are typically only seen from a submarine.

I didn't know that these giant Rolly-polly-like creatures existed. My inner child giggled when I saw these guys. My hand is only a few inches away. They can grow up to 16 inches!

These Giant Japanese Spider Crabs are Huge! I watched these on the Live Crab Cam before we came and I didn't expect them to be this big.

It was neat to watch the ends of this star curling in and out and moving around.

I could watch the sun rays and under water creatures in this Kelp Forest tank all day.

We finally saw the sea turtle!

The Jelly Fish tanks were beautiful, including this Sea Nettle.

We also spent a good amount of time outside viewing the various water birds, sea otters and sea lions right there at the Pacific Ocean. So when the museum closed, we walked up the street to the beach and an abandoned building and continued watching the sea otters.

When we were done, Michael treated me to The Giant Artichoke Restaurant in Castroville! The platter was delicious! Spinach and artichoke dip is one of my favorites and the artichoke soup wasn't bad.

I didn't know that artichokes flower like this!

When we happily left our KOA, we had all the pieces to be able to tow our Jeep for the 1st time. It was perfect. We had a short drive on a flat highway to try it out! It worked!

On our drive, we saw fields and fields of produce like:

kale...

... grapes...

... and lettuces.