Cruising Central Coast: Odds and Ends

Hi everyone... we arrived back home this past Friday night. I just thought I would post a final blog with some thoughts and odds and ends sort of things. We really enjoyed our trip to California. It was over all too soon. I was telling my wife on the way home if not for missing my kids, my dogs, and all the wonderful staff and students at Hopkinton Middle High School, I probably would not have come back. The mountains, oceans and forests which we saw were very beautiful.

I had the opportunity to visit two Middle Schools in California during my visit. I spent a day in the Cambria Middle School, which is about the same size as our school. Very interestingly they did not have any interior hallways and the lockers are outside... no snow there! The kids had a lot of questions about our school and rules, they cannot wear hats in school at all, nor chew gum. They thought snow days were so cool until I told them we have to make them up at the end of the year...bummer dude.

I think the thing my wife and I will remember the most is that on several occasions we were able to feed wild animals.There was a little jar of peanuts in the house we were renting and the owners had left a note saying the blue jays and squirrels will come around if you put the peanuts on the deck, sure enough every day they came for breakfast.

On an other day while sitting on a log at one of the beaches in Cambria, there was a sea gull standing right by us for quite a while. I went back to the car to get some almond slivers... and he not only eat the ones we threw to him but even very gently eat right out of my wife's hand!

One of the last days we were in California we went back up to the elephant seal beach in San Simeon, not only to see the seals but to say goodbye to the very friendly ground squirrels. We stepped out of car and they came running around us begging for food, we gladly fed them...

Here is a You Tube video that someone took: