The internet wasn’t working on Day 17, so it gets skipped altogether. Poor day 17.

We’re back home after spending the night in Morro Bay. It was nice to go back there and have some good seafood on the bay. A sea lion swam by right outside our window.

License plates are here for my car, so I can officially sell it/get rid of it. Before I do that though, I’m taking it in to the dealer tomorrow morning to see if anything can be done to fix my problems. I’ve read about a fix that might work, might not. Have to see.

The puppy is back home, the walls are all still here (thanks Kevin), and I’m off to continue my new found practice of writing before going to bed. In about a week I’ve climbed another 5,000 words to 30k. At that rate I can finish somewhere between 3-5 months! Here’s hoping it can continue once I go back to work.

Glad to be back!

Today we visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I’d been there when I was around 8, but I hardly remembered it. It’s not a very big place, and we saw everything in about 3 hours. Then we walked around Cannery Row where there are different shops and restaurants. Most of the day we lounged around the hotel and watched movies on cable.

Tonight is our second to last night on the trip. We’re off to Morro Bay tomorrow before heading home. It should be a fairly easy drive to help wind down the trip.

We got back last night from our short trip up the coast. We spent our first two nights in San Luis Obispo at the San Luis Creek Lodge. It’s a fairly new place that feels fresh and up-to-date. In San Luis Obispo we spent time walking around the downtown area, went to the farmers market and had a turkey leg, and drove to Morro Bay. A recurring theme on our trip was the wildlife we kept seeing, and this guy below was hanging out in Morro Bay. He even jumped up near a dock to let us take some good pictures.

I love these "smokestacks" in Morro Bay because they always look like a painting. They don’t look real for some reason, like they’re computer generated and my eyes are playing tricks on me.

After San Luis Obispo we headed up the coast and stopped in Cayucos on our way to Cambria, where we stayed at Moonstone Landing. I had never been to Cambria, but it reminded me very much of Poipu Beach on Kauai where we went on our honeymoon (but much closer and cheaper). While it’s not a Hawaii replacement (you can only spend a day or two in Cambria until you’re bored), it’s a very similar setup where a small street is the only thing between your hotel and a beautiful beach.

Cambria is just south of Hearst Castle, and even though we didn’t go there, we enjoyed the view of the coast and a nice drive. Something totally unexpected we found was a place along the beach that was literally crawling with Elephant Seals. Apparently male Elephant Seals have been coming to this specific spot since the early 1990′s to molt (get rid of their gross old skin). In a stretch of about 200 yards I would say there were at least 100 seals (there were two other spots similar to this one below).

It was great because they were barking and play fighting the whole time. There was also a really small pup that was getting chased by some big fat dude. That was hilarious. Another interesting site in Cambria was something called Nit Wit Ridge. It’s like Hearst Castle, but not really. Some guy did lots of funny/odd stuff to his house, and here is the result. Much like the hundreds of antique shops in these small towns, I’m not sure if it is art or crap.

Overall it was a very nice and relaxing few days. On a side note, I thoroughly enjoyed the Nikon d50 on the trip. It was great being able to snap pictures at will and have a lot of control over the pictures I was taking. My brother got me a nifty case to put it in that makes it much easier to carry around.

We leave Wednesday morning at 5 am for a Boston/NY trip with my parents and Denise/Paul. I’ll be sure to take a lot of pictures, but The Blarg will be update free for a week and a half. In the meantime, head on over to the Milkinator’s new site for some blogger goodness.