Indulge your inner foodie in Cambria and Morro Bay
By Eileen Ogintz
Where is my mama?
SAN SIMEON, CA — If you are one of the hundreds of juvenile elephant seals lolling on the beach at the Piedras Blancas Northern Elephant Seal Rookery in San Simeon, CA you likely won’t know, said Mike Kelley, a volunteer here with California State Parks.
His job, he explains, is to enhance our experience and he certainly does that. He and his wife Kate, he explained, started volunteering a year ago, adding that the more you know about these huge sea animals (females grow to as much as 1700 pounds, males to 5000 pounds) the more fascinating they become.
We are here at the end of April on a road trip that is taking us up the California Coast from Orange County south of Los Angeles to San Francisco.
San Luis Obispo County on California’s Central Coast, also known as SLO CAL, encompasses more than 3300 square miles. They include quirky beach towns. Pismo Preserve features 11 miles of hiking, biking and horse trails and the famous Pismo Pier, while Cambria boasts the mile-long Moonstone Beach Boardwalk. There are farmers’ markets (San Luis Obispo is famous for its Thursday night five-block long street party and farmer’s market). The area is known for wines (there are more than 250 wineries and more than 40 wine grape varieties with Paso Robles alone featuring over 200 wineries). Go whale watching or surfing; indulge your inner foodie. We have had excellent meals in Cambria and fish and chips in Morro Bay at Tognazzini’s Dockside Too, a local institution where we were entertained on the patio by a singer crooning old folk hits.
Stop in the tiny town of Cayucos at the Brown Butter Cookie Company, started by sisters Traci and Christa Hozie in late 2008 when they discovered their sample cookies at their deli were more popular than anything else. Today there’s even an online store and three locations, including downtown Paso Robles and San Luis Obispo.
The secret: they are made with melted and browned butter in a variety of flavors-lemon, cinnamon, Ghirardelli chocolate chip, toffee chocolate and more. They just needed to add dog cookies; we joked.
Did I mention this region is exceedingly dog friendly? We are staying at Cambria Pines Lodge near Moonstone Beach (love the boardwalk along the ocean!) and downtown Cambria with its myriad shops, restaurants and the Cambria Nursery and Florist with blooms sourced from Central Coast growers and distributors and a wide range of garden knickknacks. (Perhaps a hot air-like balloon windsock?)
Our two-room suite (kids would love the pull-down murphy bed!) has a small fridge and microwave and plenty of room for dogs-and a family-to spread out. There are 25 acres of beautiful gardens, a place for a respite (or a game of hide and seek), a kitchen garden, spa, and outdoor pool; the hotel’s nature trail (though a steep walk) leads to Cambria’s East Village.
As for those elephant seals who are busy spraying themselves with sand (a way to protect from sunburn, Kelley tells us) and the juveniles “sparring” playfully, they are here because they are molting, shedding their winter fur. The females and juveniles are here; the males have already headed out to sea on their way to Alaska for the summer, feeding along the way.
Imagine if after a month, human babies are left to fend for themselves. That’s the case with newborn elephant seal pups. Their moms leave them after 28 days and they must learn on their own to survive in the wild. They typically are born in January and February and come back for a month to molt because they can’t do that in the ocean.
The Piedras Blancas Northern Elephant Seal Rookery boasts a total population of 25,000 along the seven miles of beaches though they aren’t all here at the same time.
Interesting fact: In the 19th Century, elephant seals were extensively hunted for their blubber and became nearly extinct. They have recovered and repopulated their traditional haul-outs here and some islands off Baja, Mexico. They don’t eat or drink while ashore, which is why they spend so much time relaxing as they need to conserve energy.
When they leave the rookery, they travel solo. (Stop at the Elephant Seal Visitor Center in San Simeon to learn more www.elephantseal.org)
When we are tooling around Morro Bay in an electric boat from Estero Adventures, I think about the elephant seal pups who at three months can dive deeper and stay down longer than adult sea lions and harbor seals. They weigh just 60-80 pounds at birth but in a month, they weigh as much as 350 pounds!
Morro Bay is right off scenic Highway 1, famous for Morro Rock, a giant ancient volcanic mound at the end of Morro Rock Beach. We learned that the rock has guided generations of fish captains’ home. We puttered right by it as we sped playful sea otters, sea lions, and birds, including cormorants, loons, ducks, and gulls (more than 200 species!)
(There is a Morro Bay Bird Festival in January every year with the area designated a state and national estuary. People also like to watch whales here. You can see them heading south from December-mid February and north from late February through April, with Humpbacks viewed late March through April. Summer is a particularly good time to see the whales as they are often more active. Thousands of gray whales pass by Morro Bay enroute to Mexico and then back to Alaska (over 12,000 miles round trip!)
You certainly will eat well in SLO CAL, whatever you like. Cambria Pines Lodge features organically roasted Corberosa Coffee from San Luis Obispo County, a bountiful breakfast buffet.
Indigo Moon started as a wine and cheese shop (the shop is next door!) with a menu to please everyone (Blue Crab cakes as a starter; salad with pear and gorgonzola cheese; everything from Salmon Tacos to Diver Scallops, burgers, a Quinoa Bowl, and Risotto.
Robin’s Restaurant is celebrating its 40th anniversary; Robin Covey And Shanny Covey began serving their fare in the back room of a health food store in Cambria. The focus is on local ingredients (including wines, of course!) with an international twist bow to Asian dishes (think Vietnamese Spring Rolls, Moqueca, a Brazilian seafood stew, Roghan Josh a north Indian lamb curry, Moroccan beets as well as steaks, fish and chicken and everything from carrot cake to a “heavenly” hot fudge sundae for desert.
Eat without guilt — you will burn off the calories as you explore SLO CAL!