Coastal CA, part 1, and Happy Birthday Steve!!

After Christmas we met Dad and Barb near Monterey/Santa Cruz for a few nights. We stayed in a KOA camping cabin, which was pretty nice except that it was really cold at night (we had a good heater) and the showers weren't in a heated building! The showers were nice and hot, but getting out and drying off was pretty brutal since it would be in the mid-30s in the mornings.

We spent a day (Steve's Birthday!) exploring the caves and hiking at the east entrance to Pinnacles National Park (USA's newest national park, created in 2013 from what was Pinnacles National Monument). The park is the site of an ancient volcano, and the caves were formed as chunks of mountain broke off and got wedged in tight places. There are California condors in the park, though we don't think we saw any.

The park from above the Bear Gulch reservoir. It would be brutally hot here in the summer!

 Steve and Dad at the dam end of the reservoir.

The reservoir. It seemed like a weird place to build one. There was a little bit of water from the reservoir seeping into the caves below it, making waterfalls in the caves. I didn't bring my tripod so I didn't get any pictures inside the caves.

Woodpeckers peck holes into the trees, and then acorns get stuffed into the holes - but I don't know if it was birds or squirrels putting the nuts in the holes!

We also spent time walking on the beach and playing on the rocks at Point Lobos. We saw dolphins and sea otters and sea lions and lots of birds.