Day 32

Day 32: 6/18/15 (Monterey to Marina Del Rey)

318 miles

The plan for the day was to go hiking down the coast and to drive to Marina Del Rey. We packed up all of our belongings into the car and hit the road once again.  We traveled a short distance to Point Lobos State Park and hiked along the ocean for 2 hours.  The trails were lined with poison oak so we were walking very cautiously.  We spotted some seals and an otter sleeping in the kelp.  The hike was refreshing and good way to start our day.  We continued down Route 1 driving through Big Sur, Santa Barbara, Malibu, and Santa Monica before finally reaching Marina Del Rey.  If only there was more time in the day we would have stopped at more places along the way.  We did stop just south of Big Sur in San Simeon at a beach area covered with Elephant seals.  There wasn’t too much movement among them, but we did see a few make it in and out of the water. 

We arrived in Marina Del Rey around 9pm and picked up some take out that Kristen and Dan (our hosts) ordered from a Pizza place close by.  We stayed up and shared our travel stories trying to get some insight for our future destinations.  Dan had just done a road trip across the country to move out to Marina Del Rey and Kristen met him in New Mexico to see the Utah and Arizona national parks together.  We were intrigued since a lot of the places they hit are on our route back to the east coast and any advice is welcomed!  One of the great things about staying with Kristen is her cat, Mew.  We had met a few other cats along the trip, but they were all skittish and too scared to really let us pick them up and hang out.  Mew was super friendly and playful, and she was entertaining to have around.

Fact:

Elephant seals are stinky

Lesson:

If you want a close-up view of otters in the wild, you’ll need a really good set of binoculars or a spotting scope

Eat Well; Travel Often

Rico & Jillian