Southern California Trip
I went on a six day trip to Southern California – more sightseeing than animal focused but managed to see some animals along the way. I flew into LA and rented a car from Midway, cheap but a two hour wait to pick up the car in a long line. I drove up to Ventura and took the morning cruise to Santa Cruz. Island foxes were persistently at the fig tree and randomly patroled the campground. I saw less foxes at the upper loop and thought I could eat a sandwich at night in peace. I was wrong and shortly after putting my sandwich together a fox jumped on the picnic table and ran off with it, as I chased it to try getting the sandwich back another one managed to run off with the entire loaf of bread. Fortunately, I had some other snacks with me still in the fox box. I had intended to go down and look for the skunks later that night but I accidentally fell asleep and didn’t wake up until sunrise. Snorkeling revealed some nice fish, reports of bat rays but I didn’t see it myself. The next day I took the trip to Anacapa. IMO the snorkeling is a little better there and the views considerably better but of course less mammals.
I rented a kayak at morro bay from rock kayak which is at the North end of the bay right near the sea lions and sea otters. One otter was with young. This is a beautiful location for very easy kayak experience. From there I went up to stay the night at Lucia, stopping briefly at the Elephant Seal colony at San Simenon but only juveniles were there then . The hermitage at Lucia offers a grand view of the area. I saw lots of California Quail on the road and surely there must be interesting mammals nearby but I wouldn’t personally drive the road after dark (it’s in good condition but there a couple of steep curves). I swung out wide to go by sequoia on the way back to LA. There was a bear at Crescent Meadow but all I saw were rodents (I got there quite late in the morning) but the trees were impressive. One the way back to LA driving through citrus groves I saw my first roadrunner.
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