Day 4 - Point Lobos State Reserve

The plan today is to visit Point Lobos State Reserve.  After another hearty breakfast prepared by Amy, we set out.  As soon as we park the car, we see our first sea otter.  We scramble out of the car, dropping everything to get a picture of the elusive sea otter.  I was able to get a few pictures before it swam away.  They are so darn cute. 

Sea Otter

 We then started to hike toward Sea Lion Cove.  You can hear the sea lions before you see them.  

Sleeping Sea Lion

The day was cloudy with a brisk wind off the ocean and fog. 

Mist over the meadow

We found seals, sea lions and a bird which I have named the Amy bird. 

Amy Bird

It flew over us several times at low altitude and I think it was attracted to Amy’s new red fleece jacket.  We continued to hike through cyprus trees and around each corner was another wonderful view.

Sea Lions

Seal 1

Seal 2

Seal 3

 We had packed a lunch and after 4 hours of hiking we stopped for lunch.   At the rest area we made a new friend whom I called Jonathon.   He (or she) was very friendly and shared our lunch of guava jelly and almond butter sandwiches, chips and cookies.  We have learned from out last trip that sea gulls do not like grapes.  What’s up with that?   

Jonathon Seagull sharing our lunch

After lunch we hiked some more and finally we headed back to the car.  Guess who was waiting for us?   Yes it was Jonathon.  I teased Amy that we had a sea gull stalking us all day and I have pictures to prove it.  Jonathon has a red dot on his beak, several of the pictures I have of sea gulls we are able to see the beak and it has the same red dot.  Unless all sea gulls have the same red dot, if not, we were stalked all day by the same sea gull.  Freaky!  We hobbled back to the cabin for a chai break and to get our hiking boots off.  Soon it will be off to Safeway to update our blogs.  Dinner tonight is noodles with butternut squash spaghetti sauce – yummy!