Our USA Adventure - Days 59 to 63 - San Luis Obispo, Monarch Butterfly Grove, Morro Bay & Santa Barbara

Monarch butterflies overwintering in Eucalyptus trees in Morro Bay

The Housesit was only six days and it’s flown by, and gone! Day four, Thursday, Thanksgiving, we went south by half an hour to Pismo beach, for another Wildlife first. The overwintering of the endangered monarch butterfly. In a little tiny grove of eucalyptus trees, thousands of monarch butterflies are spending their winter. There were a few flying about and it took a while to get your eye in, but once you did they were just hanging in the trees making eucalyptus look like wisteria! We waited for the talk, which we weren’t really expecting, what with it being Thanksgiving, and she was very good, not spontaneous, but very rehearsed and informative. 

We learned all about the lifecycle of the butterfly, that starting on February 14th (which might have been a little bit of poetic license) then butterflies start to mate. The female will only lay her eggs, one per leaf, on the native Milkweed. They hatch in 4 days, the very hungry caterpillar then eats and eats and eats for a fortnight, before becoming a chrysalis and then a butterfly. This continues for 4 generations, each one spreading a bit further out, so in the course of one season they can get as far as Canada. At a certain point, to do with the availability of milkweed, a switch is flicked, egg laying stops and the ability to take in vast amounts of nectar begins. These butterflies will then return the distance it has taken four generations to spread, and overwinter, waiting for the following spring to breed and start all over again. Three years ago their numbers in this grove were in the low hundreds, this year so far there are 24000 (yes, they count them, two people will count one tree and if they are more than 5% different, will count the same tree again, till they are closer!) This is still only 10% of what it has been, but obviously it’s better!

The Eucalyptus trees were originally planted as a wind break for the RV park next to the beach, but the butterflies also found them to be a sheltered site for their overwintering. They come back to the same site every year, not the same one's, but the great-great-great-grandchildren of those who were here the previous year. How do they know? We walked down through the sand-dunes to the beach. The RV park was full, it was a warm day and families were gathered outside their RV's with BBQ's cooking Thanksgiving lunch. Its a big celebration here, we've heard some consider it more important than Christmas  

This little Chickadee posed for us by the beach

Back to the house for cheese on toast, the simple pleasures of having a kitchen, before heading off to Bishop Peak, only 475m, but only 6 minutes from the house, and in direct line of sight. According to Brian it had to be done. And so it was! Not sure the cheese on toast actually helped but it was a good hike! See our short Relive video with photos: click here

Bishop Peak from the balcony of the housesit house. It has to be climbed! We went up from the right, which doesn't look that steep, but it was quite relentless: 323m of ascent in 2.24km and we were on top within an hour of starting

View from the top. San Luis Obispo

Friday we went 30 minutes north to Morro Bay, home of sea otters (or odders as it is pronounced here). We didn’t think we could beat our first sea otter sighting in Monterey, but we were wrong 19 assorted mums, and by now, largish pups, just floating around, so close to the shore, in the harbour. Watch his video for 10 minutes of cuteness, it’ll just make you smile! We then went round to the other viewing area, where we saw nothing, but we had to check. As we were coming back, we eventually saw a few in the water, but think they must have been from our original viewing as by the time we got back there, there were only 5 left. We were thrilled with our day!

Down there in one of those houses are the two cats we were looking after. Beyond, just peeking through some of the hills you can just see the Pacific Ocean

Saturday the end of the sit, so house cleaning and farewells to the delightful Winston and Stevie. Who knew an automatic feeder could be so entertaining! They knew something was going to happen about 30seconds before it did, and then it sounded like they’d won the jackpot on a one armed bandit! We waited to hear Sharla had landed and headed south, aiming for Santa Barbara. We stopped en route at Solvang, Danish centre of the USA, it really felt like we were somewhere entirely different, buildings, windmills, bakeries and lots of tourists. A really interesting stop for coffee and cake, which we had to queue for, every bakery had queues! By the time we arrived in Santa Barbara there was not time for much apart from dinner, so after a little research we drove (only about the third time we’ve driven for dinner) to the pier and the shellfish company. The queue was long, but not as long as it appeared. You put your name on the list, number in party and whether you wanted to be inside or outside. As a space became available (I say space as there were no tables inside, just the bar and stools at shelves round the edge of the room) they came and shouted the next name on the list. We are obviously better at queuing than many others as our time came much quicker than expected! We had a modest, but very good, clam pasta dish, but looked at the crab and decided we had to come back tomorrow.

Here's our Youtube video of the sea otters at Morro Bay. It's just under 10 minutes long and its full of very cute sea otters. I just couldn't edit anything out they were too cute!

We spent quite a lot of this morning planning and booking our time in LA before walking along the seafront via lots of craft stalls. The tourist information sent us downtown to the court house which we had read about. It was a lovely building, had some great murals and a tour in half an hour. We waited and did the tour. He knew his stuff, but wasn’t the most scintillating character! He did also go on a bit! See a short video of our town walk with photos: click here. We had to go back to the motel before going out to eat, as it was getting decidedly chilly, so a fast walk, before driving to the pier again. Alphonso, our server from last night obviously didn’t believe us when we said see you tomorrow, though did eventually recognise us. We were then his favourite people, he knew which beer we wanted, and to go with the 3lb of crab offered us a cup of chowder and a Caesar salad to start ‘on the house’ who are we to say no? The crab was fab, never easy to eat, but as I said to him, if enjoyment is proportional to mess, we loved it. Bit more chat, and when he brought us the bill he said “I’ve done a little something for you guys” yup, he’d ‘comped’ the three beers at $8 each, as well as the soup and salad! What we’d expected to be one of our most expensive meals suddenly became one of our cheapest! What a very nice young man, I felt quite emotional with the total kindness of strangers.

They were just so adorable we were there for a long time just watching them. Completely wild and there as it was safe for them, they later left to go hunting for their lunch. They have to eat 25% of their body weight each day to survive. Hard to believe they were hunted to almost extinction for their fur in the 19th century. They were thought to be extinct, but a few survived and they all now descend from there, still endangered but more stable now

Floating in their safe port

The rock at Morro Bay. We walked round it to see the Pacific breakers coming in. It looks very climbable, but climbing is strictly not allowed with a $2000 fine. The reason is its full of wildlife, some people had telescopes trained on nests. We saw young Burrowing Owls on their nest through one and a type of heron through another 

We passed by a tree full of Night Herons on the way round the bay. This was the only one I could get a good view of, the others were obscured by branches, including some spotted youngsters that were just too hidden for a good photo

Rock art!

The raging Pacific even on a calm, sunny day and the reason sea otters bring their young into the harbour until they are big and strong enough

Managed to get this shot of a little lizzard with no tail (they detach and leave them wriggling to distract predators and then grow a new one). He didn't know which way to run when he saw us, but eventually decided on a safe route and ran off at high speed

We visited the Morro Bay Maritime Museum which was small but interesting. This sub was built following the sinking of the submarine USS Thresher, which sank in waters too deep to rescue the crew. It had a big impact on people as the crew were still in contact on the seabed, but nothing could be done to help them. This rescue sub was built to stop anything like this happening again, but it was never used

In the lovely town of Solvang. It felt as though we'd been transported to Denmark

Even the hotels were built in Danish style. A very pretty town

Onn to Santa Barbara and the Seafood Restaurant on the pier we visited two night running

We watched the sunset while we waited for a table

Shellfish straight from the sea, they work really hard, it's very busy and the food is just fabulous!

The largest fig tree in the US apparently. It was on the list of things to see in Santa Barbara, so here it is

Street art in Santa Barbara. He's not a real window cleaner, just a statue. There were many similar sculptures all around

The very nice Courthouse in Santa Barbara, a must visit and free tour. Only built in 1929 (and made earthquake proof following the original buildings demise in a 1925 earthquake, it looks much older

There were 360 degree views from the tower with great views over the town, Pacific and hills. Notable people which live or have lived here are Harry and Megan and Ronald Reagan. Apparently Queen Elizabeth II visited here in the 1980's to see Ronald Reagan. We kept a sharp eye open for either Harry or Megan but didn't see them

Some of the wonderful murals in what used to be a courtroom

Two fishermen working off the coast last night as we waited for our table on the pier

Before we go, a few photos from our housesit. Here's Stevie (left) and Winston on their fabulous climbing frames. Happy cats!

They spend ages playing together, sometimes nicely, occasionally with some hissing and chasing at high speed. How nothing gets broken is anyone's guess!

But there were some moments of peace too

Had a bit of an accident with my glasses, they broke in half. Fortunately Sharla had some excellent glue that she directed me to in one of her drawers, so I managed to glue them, hopefully successfully. Fortunately I have another older pair with me (I had previously broken those too when at Tony and Nickys in Scotland during the pandemic. They are also glued together but have remained so. Hopefully these will too)