Tehachapi Pass and Mojave Desert

This past week we left the Central Coast region of California to spend a couple of days in southern California. The chief reason for our going down south is because we wanted to visit my wife's mother who lives in Redlands California. 

We did not take the more direct route, which was down the coastal highway but we traveled inland before heading south. There were two places that I wanted to see on the way down to southern California. I wanted to visit the Tehachapi Pass and see what the Mojave desert looks like.

I went to the Tehachapi pass not only to see the beautiful Sierra Nevada Mountains  around Tehachapi, but also because the Tehachapi Pass is one of the windiest areas in the world.  I was reading on the Internet that the winds through the pass average 14 to 20 miles per hour. It is the home of  one of the largest wind farms in our country. The entire state of California has 16,000 wind  turbines, with 5,000 of them being in Tehachapi. The turbines went up in the early 1980's and literally cover some hillsides.  If you go into Google Earth, you can see just how many wind turbines are in this area (35º 05' 17.55" N  118º 16' 52.78" W).

We drove down from the Sierra Nevada mountains after leaving Tehachapi  and found ourselves driving through the Mojave desert. I have never been to a desert before and in my mind I was expecting it to look something like pictures I had seen of the Sahara, just miles and miles of sand. But it does not look like that at all. It is a large relatively  flat basin. The website for the Mojave desert says that it is 25,000 square miles. It  was not just miles of sand dunes, it does seem rather dry, but there is vegetation, at least in the areas that we traveled through. We saw various brush growth and Joshua Trees all along the route.

Two other places in the Mojave desert that were passed were Edwards Air Force Base and Boron.  Edwards Air Force is important as it is one of the designated landing sites in the country for the space shuttle, as a matter of fact the Columbia, the first shuttle to be launched landed at Edwards Air Force base in 1981.

Now you may ask,what about Boron California, well in 1925  a large deposit of boron was found in the hills around Boron. This is the primary cleaning agent used in Borax, the well known 20 Mule Team Borax powdered hand soap.

Monterey

After we left Felton we traveled south about 45 minutes to visit Monterey. We wanted to go here to see the scenic 17 mile drive and visit the Monterey Aquarium. While driving down we passed some farms which had this crop growing:

Look close at the picture and see if you can guess what it is. These vegetables do not grow in New England, but we can buy them in the market. If you can not figure if out click here.

When we got to Monterey we drove over to the 17 mile drive. This is a coastal toll road that is owned by the Pebble Beach Golf Course.  It is really nice, it winds along the coast offering some great views of turbulent waves crashing the coast.  

There is one point on the drive called  Fanshell Overlook, where there is a stretch of white sand beach which attracts harbor seals. We saw a whole bunch sunning themselves on the rocks and swimming around in the ocean. The road soon begins to wind upwards along the coast an through cypress groves... we saw the Lone Cypress... the landmark image of Pebble Beach. 

After we left the 17 Mile drive we drove across to to visit the Monterey Aquarium.  It was about four in the afternoon , and the aquarium closes at six , so we only had about two hours in the Aquarium but it was really well worth the time. The central tank features not only many varieties of fish but it also has a giant kelp forest.  They  have an Otter exhibit, they are very cute!  There are  several touch tanks... one of which features Bat Rays, I have never touched  a Bat ray before... it was cool. 

So  in the evening we visited Cannery Row and Fisherman's Wharf, nice little gifts shops and great fresh seafood.

Felton Redwoods

This past Monday we drove up to Felton California from Cambria, about 110 miles. We were going here because this area of California is the home the the famous California Redwood forests. There are several forests and state parks in this area of California, but we picked the Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park as it is the most easily accessible. If you want to locate it you can find it at: 37º 01' 23.99" N 122º 03' 13.27" W in Google Earth.

The Henry Cowell Redwoods state Park is fairly small only about 4,000 acres but is the home to some of the largest and most spectacular redwoods in this part of the state. One of the trees in this park is about 270 feet tall and almost 17 feet wide.

Some of the things I learned on this trip is that redwood trees are specially adapted to the rather temperate, foggy and moist conditions found in this region. They never are found any more than 20 to 40 miles from the ocean.

Have you ever wondered why redwood trees are red? Well I found out that the Redwood bark and wood are full of tannic acid, which gives them this color.

One of the most unusual things about Redwood trees is that even though they are conifers, these trees actually reproduce by sprouting out new trees from their roots.

The pictures in the blog really do not give credit to the size and spectacular nature of these trees, if you ever visit California you really should check out the Redwood forests, they are AWESOME!

San Simeon and Elephant Seals

This past Wednesday we travelled up the coastal highway to San Simeon, home of the Hearst Mansion. We were not there to visit the mansion, at least not on this trip. We were here to view the Elephant Seals.

Each year the seals migrate from the waters off the coast of Alaska to the central coast region of California. They are here to give birth to their calves. Each year starting in late November to early December the adults begin to arrive.  It is estimated that this year there are somewhere between 4000 - 7000 seals.  It is a really awesome sight to see.

The males are between 14 to 16 feet long and can weight up to two tons. The females are about 10 to 12 feet in length and weigh between 1000 - 2000 pounds. When the calves are born  they usually weigh about 75 pounds, but while nursing durning the next month they  rapidly gain weight to between 250 to 350 pounds.  You can find the elephant seal rookery in Google Earth : 35º 39'09. 52 N  121º14'28. 20 W. There are some other people's pictures posted there as well

Here is a You Tube video, someone shot last year.

Before we left the area, we also had the chance to visit with some of the local squirrel population:

Have a good week at school... I will post another blog later this week

Winter on the Central Coast

The winter in the central coast of California is wonderful, not just because of the weather, mostly sunny and in the mid-sixties, but it is along the migratory routes of several animal species. With this in mind we took two trips this week to check out some critter migration.

On Tuesday we travelled down to the village of Los Osos, just outside of Morro Bay. In Los Osos there is a small park called the Sweet Springs Nature Preserve. This is a 24 acre nature preserve along the edge of Morro Bay. There are several trails which meander through Monterrey Cypress  and eucalyptus groves. But the reason we came here today was the fact that from October to March, monarch butterflies cluster in the branches of the eucalyptus trees. We saw bunches of them ...it was pretty cool!  See if you can find Sweet Springs Nature Preserve in Google Earth: 35º. 19'.16.76 N  120º.50.29.73W

Tomorrow's blog... San Simeon, and and elephant seal migrations

Los Osos and Morro Bay

Yesterday we traveled down to Los Osos and Morro Bay.  While we were in Los Osos we visited the Elfin Forest. This is a 90 acre natural area in the town of Los Osos.  The park has two distinct biomes, the first part was a coastal dune scrub area. This is an area of stabilized dunes low growing shrubs, grasses and wildflowers here we saw west coast silver lupines and california sagebrush.

The second biome area was composed mostly of Pygmy Coast Live oaks. What is interesting about this forest is that elsewhere in the state these trees grow to be about 50 feet tall, but here they only grow to be about 12 feet in height.

The oak trees in this picture are estimated to be about 200 years old. If you look closely at the branches you will see some lacy vegetation hanging down from the branches. This is called Lace Lichen. It is not a plant, but rather fungi and algae. They do not harm the trees, they are helpful to the trees by gathering moisture and nutrients from the air.

We left the Elfin forest and traveled over to Morro Bay to see Moro Rock.

Moro rock is the remains of a dormant volcano. It is on a pennisula jutting out into the harbour. It is about 570 feet tall and is visible for miles. See if you can find it in Google Earth, it is located at: 35° 22′ 9″ N, 120° 52′ 2″ W. Here is another closer picture of Morro Rock:

Sierra Nevadas and Donner Pass

This morning our train left Reno Nevada to begin it's trip crossing the Sierra Nevadas and into California state. In crossing the mountains the train climbs the Sierra Mountain Range, climbing some 7,000 feet. The scenery here is awesome, white snowy covered mountains and pine forests, it is almost like being in the White mountains of New Hampshire, only the mountains are higher.

For several miles we followed the Truklee River , eventually our train began it's final ascent during this part of the trip and into the infamous Donner Pass. See if you can find the Donner Pass in Google Earth it is located at:  39° 18′ 57″ North Latitude, 120° 19′ 17″ West Longitude.

During the winter of 1846 blizzards trapped a party of settlers from the midwest, who had been traveling this route to California.  By the time help arrived in February of 1847 about half of the group had either straved or frozen to death, some members of the Donner party had  gone mad and even resorted to cannibalism to survive.

The views of Donner lake from the top of the Donner pass are absolutely stunning. In the section of track from Truklee to Sacramento there were at one time 37 miles of snow sheds , which some had described as 'railroading in a barn'.  Although  many of these snow sheds are no longer being used there are still about four miles of sheds remaining  today in this section of the Amtrak line.