December 17th – December
23rd 2012
J. is in her normal routine (even she
has to drive herself). The weather is quite goofy. It is raining
quite often. Yet, it is still better then foot of snow in Michigan or
in Flagstaff. The end of the year is coming, we do not have any
special plans. We had some errands to run and finish, so we took this
week pretty easy. I took few longer walks around the town. It is
interesting, because we are almost on the shore, but it as well mean
we are a bit further from the downtown. I guess you barely get
everything at once. Both days I walked along the shore, where is the
park with small hill. I learned, that it used to be a landfill. All
my walks were in pretty nice weather, so I had a view of San
Francisco and Bay Bridge. It was really pleasant.
On the top of the hill in the park,
there are information panels, some benches and binoculars. Even nicer
view of the city. I tried to take the picture through the lens. It is
really nice view of the bay and surrounding area. Unfortunately,
there is not much to see of San Mateo. It is flat area without any
special buildings.
I even found “Detroit drive” road,
there is water treatment plant on that street. It is as well
interesting to see those dinky small houses that cost around 450
thousand dollars. There is as well many small ponds, lakes and
channels, those have many houses around. It has to be nice to have a
place there.
I walked through the area with many
office buildings and newer developments. It was strange area. It is
border area between San Mateo and Foster City. Apparently Foster
City's elevation is 8 feet. Still, it is incredible difference
between Flagstaff and this area. I think, I feel much different (and
better) then in that high elevation. Who knew?
It was really nice to walk in
relatively warm weather, enjoy the breeze and watch blooming plants.
There is not many trees, but there is plenty of small parks and
grassy areas. In the end, it is quite pretty and enjoyable. And all
the palm trees …
By one office building, there was small
pond and a lot of ducks running around. Well, they were not really
running, just hanging around and eating grass. I was wondering if you
can hunt them. Or, you could probably just catch them with bare
hands, for lunch.
At that point, I got into busier part
of the town. It was the intersection of two freeways (101 and 92).
There were sidewalks, so I did not have to run all over the roads,
but there was as well a lot of traffic. Oh well … I crossed 101 and
walked along 92. It was strange. So many cars. And so many views of
bridges and structures.
After crossing that part, I walked
through the residential area. Pretty nice. A bit too much sun, I was
getting too warm. And looking forward to be at home. And again 101
freeway.
And Third Avenue Pedestrian Bridge.
Almost home …
We made a reservation at Ano Nuevo
State Park for a guided walk to see elephant seals. The forecast was
not the greatest, but if we would be waiting for nice weather, we
would not see anything. The morning was cloudy and gray. J. had hard
time to get up and get going (as usual). We picked 9.45 am time. It
was Friday before Christmas, so the traffic was light. The drive was
normal, at the time, we got to the shore, it started to rain on and
off. That was not good sign.
It got really windy and the car was
somewhat shaking as we were driving along the ocean. It was
interesting view to see cloudy and dark sky, really wild ocean and
all the rain. But it was not good news for our walk. We had to pay
entrance fee and park. There was few cars in the parking lot. We had
some rain gear, but did not know what we will need. At that point, it
was not raining yet. There was old barn redone as a visitor's center,
where we picked up the tickets.
We had about 10 minutes. We walked
through the small exhibit. There were some people coming and looked
like they were going to walk with us. Two more younger couple and a
family. The exhibit included as well big screen projecting “seal
cam”. There is a camera on the beach streaming the video. The seals
were there, so we were hoping to see some.
It started to rain. We were sent to the
staging area. It would be nice and pleasant walk (about 20 minutes).
However, it was windy and raining, so it was quite unpleasant. We got
to the small house, half way to the beach. At least there was a roof
to stand under. We got a guide, were told few things and walked
toward the beach. Apparently, the seals are more active in this
weather. The path was fine, for the part it was even like boardwalk,
after that, we just walked in the sand. The weather got worse, it was
raining and really windy.
And apparently, we were supposed to
stay at least 25 feet from the seals. We were soaked. It was not
nice. After some walking in the sand, we were close to the ocean and
then we saw it. There were giant seals lying around. We were probably
about 30 feet away. The female weighs about 1700 pounds, the male is
between 2500 – 5000 pounds. We were close to some smaller ones, and
it was unbelievable. We were so close, we could pretty much feed
them.
After seeing those ones on the inner
beach, we walked on the hill and were standing really close to huge
male. Apparently, he was making noises to scare other males. It was
really amazing view. On the beach below us, there were probably 30
more seals. We even saw two males kind of trying to fight. Even we
were completely wet and pretty cold, it was still well worth it.
While we were looking around, the big male was making more noises.
We made one more stop and were heading
back to the station. It got darker and there was more got. In a way
it was kind of magic picture (not counting us being completely wet
and cold). At the station, he told us some more stuff about seals,
and that was the end of our walk. Apparently, they were declared
extinct, but today there is about 170 000 seal worldwide.
Walk back. We were so wet, that it did
not matter anymore, so we walked some extra, taking a trail along the
angry ocean. Again, pretty nice view.
We were planning to stop by some other
beaches and stay bigger part of the day, but we were just too wet, so
we changed our mind and left for home. It rained even harder and it
looked like the end of the world (which should come 12-21-12).
We drove home the same way as we came.
We figured out, we would get home, change and then do some grocery
shopping. After we crossed the mountains (hard to call it like that,
but …) the rain and fog was gone and we saw some blue sky. There
was a rainbow. What a nice day. Not even 15 miles driven. We too the
rest of the day easy. The same is true for Saturday. J. did not feel
well, so we did some reading, resting and I washed the car. On
Sunday, as J. did feel any better, we stayed at home, resting, reading and doing pretty much nothing. It was raining most of the day anyway.
