Day 4 of Half Empty Takes a Holiday: Morro Bay Beckons

[Nothing happened yesterday so . . .]

DAY 4:

We raced across California's Central Valley through Valley Fog in the a.m. to make the 11 o'clock deadline for breakfast at Harris Ranch. Those who know Harris Ranch for their beef, and their fine restaruant at the corner of I-5 and US 198, but haven't been there awhile - hey, the food is still good, and the breakfast is still superb. Try their Tri-tips and eggs.

Then we beat a path to the coast trying to avoid one of those famous CalTrans road building projects where they make you wait for about a half an hour while Jesus knows what goes on. In being too clever, we encountered another such project along our alternate planned route. While waiting to be allowed through the construction area, I recalled that there was an incident a few months ago at another CalTrans project on US 138 in Antelope Valley. There, a driver became so irate at the delays and CalTrans employees' seemingly uncaring attitude toward his angst, that he angrily took off through the construction zone before he was given permission.

He was stopped and arrested.

Here is a story on how drivers have issued death threats to CalTrans workers on that project.

As I recalled that story, and the story on the bullying, I smiled at our flagman, and patiently waited for the "pilot car" to guide us through the construction zone. It eventually came, and it guided us past busy road builders and one not so busy road builder taking a snooze in a ditch next to his parked paver.

Sorry no photo. It came up too soon.

We alit on the California central coast at a little fishing village and tourist trap known as Morro Bay. It is named for Morro Rock which dominates the view (along with the 3 stacks atop the PG&E electricity generating station), and presides over the harbor entrance.

It was a bright clear day. These photos were taken of the coastal view just north of Morro Rock.

Then if you turn around 180 degrees you can see the harbor entrance. I noted a returning fishing boat and snapped this photo.

Right on its heels came one of those recreational fishing boats where they charge a fee and sell you bait so you can fish to your heart's content in the deep sea. This boat, in the photo below, roared past the professional boat and it looked like a madhouse was entering the harbor. Sports fishermen were falling all over each other throwing unused bait up into the air and in the water, to be eaten by what looked to be about 50 assorted species of sea birds, dominated by sea gulls, but with a good contingent of brown pelican to boot. It was a circus.

Then there's Morro Rock itself, standing at the harbor entrance, forming one side of it, brooding over the whole scene.

Later on, as we were walking along the Embarcadero, I finally got to find out what you do if you own a sea crane, but no one is using it for anything just now. What you use it for is to tip over your big heavy flat bottomed fishing boat so you can dump the water out.

Hey, why use a bucket when you have a sea crane to do all your work for you?