Dune Sledding (Wednesday)

On Wednesday afternoon we divided up.  Kyle, Mom and Dad wanted to tour a winery and mission in San Luis Obispo and we knew that would probably be pushing the girls' patience, so we let them nap and then took our own little family hike.

We were baffled when we pulled in and saw all the sleds in the garage.  Reading the homeowners' binder of suggestions, though, we learned that the sleds were to be used on the giant sand dunes behind the house.  What a great idea!   We hauled the sleds and the girls out to the dunes and had one of our favorite afternoons!

The first dune to get up and over was a real stinker to climb.  Many breaks were needed and crawling on hands and knees helped the girls get up it.  But running, rolling and sledding down were so much fun, it was worth the strain to repeatedly climb it.

Also the view was spectacular.  As you can see, every afternoon we enjoyed blue skies and sunshine after waking up to fog and chill.

The summit of that first tall dune led out to a whole desert of dunes eventually ending at the ocean.  It was just cool to run around this landscape finding smaller dunes to slide down and jump off of.

Ella even tried surfing!  It was the perfect place to test her balance because as she inevitably tumbled, the soft sand cushioned her fall.

We returned home and swapped stories with the family.  While they very much enjoyed the winery and mission, they had to make a repeat trip with us out to the dunes the next afternoon.  I think Grandma made Grandpa fall in love with her all over again as she spent the afternoon laughing and racing down the dunes on her sled! :)

Elfin Forest (Wednesday)

As were many of our destinations, the Elfin Forest was a State Park just minutes from our rental house.  This park featured a long boardwalk through a unique forest of old Pygmy Oaks.  I guess the trees are special because their growth is stunted by the salt air.  The forest path is right along the coast, so there were lots of opportunities to stop and look out over Morro Bay and Morro Rock.

 

The trees were all gnarly and twisty.  Some had long moss hanging off of them.  Kyle said he felt like he was in The Hobbit as we hiked through the forest. 

The Elfin Forest was something neat to see and made for a perfect little morning outing on Wednesday.

Elephant Seals (Tuesday)

After lunch at the Hearst Castle, we drove just a few minutes down Highway 1 and enjoyed this Elephant Seal beach.  This sandy spot is one that the massive and blubbery seals migrate to from Alaska several times each year.  In July, it is the males that claim their piece of this "timeshare", coming here to molt and shed their winter fur. 

Mostly, they were just laying on the beach like sand-colored lumps, but we saw a few guys lumbering around.  It was cool to watch this seal roll out the ocean after a swim.

A long talk with a very passionate docent taught us many things.  The week we were at the coast was actually on the warm side (we LOVED it-- cool enough for the fireplace in the morning and hot tub in the evening, but warm enough in the afternoon sun to wear shorts).  She explained that the seals were roasting and kept tossing sand over their bodies to cool off.

Seeing animals in the wild like this never ceases to amaze me.  Later, you'll read about some of the other ocean life we sighted this week, it really was incredible!

Hearst Castle (Tuesday)

When the Central Coast vacation was planned, the first thing we knew we surely wanted to do was tour the Hearst Castle in San Simeon.  The opulent house was something to see, but by the end of the week, some of the other amazing sights of creation we witnessed actually topped it.

A super brief history of the castle is this: the Hearst family was crazy rich from silver mining and owned a ton of land on the coast.  The son, William Randolph, continued in the family's wealth with a mega newspaper and movie producing industry.  He decided he wanted to build the home of his dreams, one that was inspired by sights and architecture of real castles in Europe, and dedicated a big part of his later life to designing and building this imposing mansion on the bluffs overlooking the Pacific. 

We started the tour with a bus ride winding up the hills.  We learned how Mr. Hearst loved animals and saw where he once kept his personal zoo.

The tour went on for a little over an hour and showed us all sorts of glamorous and glorious aspects of the castle and Mr. Hearst's famed art collection.  You may be wondering how the girls did on a tour of this length and nature and the answer is GREAT!  As you can image, Ella loved the fancy house and listed it among her favorite things that we did during the week.

Throughout the tour, we encountered no ceiling that was un-fancy.  Each time we looked up, we were impressed.  I love this moment I caught Delia and Dave in.  She kept whispering, "Wooow! Wooow!"

One view of the ocean.

The castle's outdoor Neptune Pool is pretty famous.

The property is divided up into La Casa Grande (the big huge house Mr. Hearst lived in) and several guest houses that every significant star from the golden age of film has stayed in.

The guest houses were set up with clothes, shoes and accessories from the era.  The display of fancy dresses delighted Ella!

We played the "If you could have any room from the castle in your house, what would it be?" game and it was unanimous that the indoor Roman pool was the one to choose.  The grand movie theatre was a second choice.  Our guide told us that because of Mr. Hearst's connections to the industry, many big name movies, like Gone With the Wind, were actually premiered for the first time at his home for his personal parties!

The castle is so humongous that the tour we picked for first time visitors just barely scratched the surface.  Die hard tourists can take more extensive tours of the gardens, guest houses, libraries, etc.  What we saw was just right for us, though-- enough to say we saw it!

Avila (Monday)

Since Teri's parents own a home in the same coastal town we were staying in, it worked out perfectly for us to meet up with them while they also visited the area!  Together we did a morning outing to Avila, a great little beach town with a great big farm.  The Avila Valley Barn has a country store with multiple rooms of goods.  Here you can buy homemade pastries and jams, home grown fruits and veggies, wines and cheese and cute crafty things.  Our homeowners warned us that a stop there was dangerous, and that we'd come home with something we weren't planning on buying.  In our case, it was an apple-raspberry pie.  A very delicious apple-raspberry pie!

The farm also has hayrides out to their U-pick fields and a huge petting zoo.  The girls got a bag of fresh greens and gave the barnyard critters some love and attention with their friends Beth, Allie and Nathan.

We were excited to see the peacock raise his feathers for us!

Next we drove to the beach, which had a pirate-themed park, swings in the sand, a long pier and a bunch of beachy shops to browse.  Phil, Teri, Dave and I juggled the kids back and forth between the park and the beach and squeezed some conversation in between.  Mom, Dad and Kyle strolled around the pier and town.

The girls were quick to start the sand castle building and Delia was a little too quick to get in the ocean-- running right in fully clothed!  We watched our brave friends jump the icy waves in their bathing suits. 

We're thankful for the perfect timing and location that allowed us to quickly catch up with these favorite friends.

The AMAZING House (Sunday)

When we arrived at our rental home that night, we opened the door and raced around in wonder!  We knew from internet pictures that we were getting lots of house for what we were paying, but seeing the actual beach retreat far exceeded our expectations.  The owners live in the home for part of the year and they just started renting it out.  We think they'll up the price and remove some of their super nice things from it as time goes on.  The house had 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 2 living rooms (each with a fireplace), upstairs and downstairs decks (complete with wicker rocking chairs and hot tub!) and 1 amazing view!

Without doubt, our favorite room was this all-glass sun room.  The walls and roof were actually made completely of windows!  A golf course ran right through the backyard and while sitting there in the sun with the windows cracked for breeze, we could hear people teeing off.  We curled up on these couches and read over 1000 pages collectively!

The view was kind of a 180.  Yes, our immediate view was of the lush green golf course, but behind it was Morro Bay and Morro Rock.  To another side we saw the mudflats and sand dunes.

The girls' favorite room was this short-ceilinged, secret hideout under the stairs.  The owners turned this into kid-heaven, wish plush body pillows, artwork from children's stories hanging on the walls and stocked with toys and books.  Ella took several rests in the secret hideout.

And these are just some things we did in the fabulous house (for more pictures of the rooms, visit my Facebook album, or watch for a slideshow in the margin).  Grandpa and Grandma wanted to have a little birthday party for the girls since they aren't usually around for their birthdays.  They opened a few gifts and blew out candles on the Butterfinger ice cream cake I made.

One day a spontaneous dance party broke out!  Below is a much more common scene: game playing.  The week's Trains total was 7 games with Dad getting his first win ever!

This lovely home was our haven.  Just minutes away from fun activities every day, we'd come back each nap time and evening for some reading, meal making and game playing.  The owners blessed us by sparing no luxury on their guests.  It was a sad thing to drive away.

The Drive Down (Sunday)

I counted.  I have NINE posts about this wonderful coastal vacation!  We did such a great variety of cool things each day, I just have to record each marvelous memory!  For the sake of my readers, though, I'll tell the story in pieces-- probably corresponding the outings we took with the dates of exactly one week ago when we took them at the coast.

So it begins with the ride down.  We left last Sunday after church and decided to take the much longer, but much more scenic, way down famously beautiful Highway 1.  Dad and Dave did a professional job of packing the minivan, which we christened with this long trip!, with all our luggage, coolers, sand toys and bags of books and games. 

The drive down the coast was spectacular!  The views of the valleys, hills, rocks, cliffs and crashing surf made the length and the twists and turns of the drive worthwhile.  We pulled over and jumped out often to take in some of those views and gulp some deep breaths of fresh air.

Considering we were in the car for about 7 hours, the girls did GREAT!  We had lots of activities to distract them, and of course family to laugh and share stories with.

Sunday, the first day of VM Vacation at the Coast, was off to a great start!