Click on any photo to enlarge it.
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| Taking in a view of Morro Rock and Morro Bay from Highway 46 west (en route from Paso Robles to Cambria) |
Cambria
Cambria is the classical name for Wales. It is a Latinized form of the Welsh place name Cymru (Wales). How did a town on the Central Coast of California end up being named after the Roman name for Wales?
Squibb House, Burton Street, Cambria
Here's a bit of the local history as written by Paul Squibb, who lived in Cambria. His house, located on Burton Street in downtown Cambria, is now a bed and breakfast called Squibb House.
"The village of Cambria took very much its present shape during the eighteen-sixties, on the Santa Rosa Rancho of Don Julian Estrada. The Estrada adobe ranch house stood near the corner of Highway 1 and Green Valley Road."
"As the lumber, ranching and mining interests increased in the region, the village became more prosperous, and late in the sixties, it adopted the more dignified name of Cambria, largely through the influence of a surveyor from Cambria County, Pennsylvania."
"Many small ranches were established in the surrounding territory, some on government land, some on land claimed by Spanish-Californian grantees, and some on land purchased from the grantees. Attempts at orcharding and general farming were not especially successful, however, and it was not until Swiss dairymen set the pace for a major industry during the eighteen-eighties that prosperity came to the region. By the turn of the century Cambria was shipping over a ton of butter per day to San Francisco via the wharf at San Simeon. Cheese production is said to have averaged over a half-ton daily."
-Paul Squibb
1959
Some people argue over how Cambria finally got its name and disagree with Mr. Squibb's version of the story. It is certainly a more pleasant sounding name than Slabtown and it would seem that the name has inspired residents to call many of the streets after places in the British Isles: Windsor, Suffolk, Cornwall, Kent, Nottingham, Pembroke, and York to name a few.
Here's a link to the Cambria Historical Society's website:
Elephant Seal Rookery at Piedras Blancas
The Northern Elephant Seal is a huge seal that lives in the Pacific Ocean. This marine mammal has very thick blubber. During the 1800s, the Northern Elephant Seal was hunted to near extinction for its blubber, which was used for lamp oil. There were only about 100 of these seals remaining around 1890. Now, more than 100 years later, the species is still recovering.
These intelligent and social animals congregate in large groups (called colonies) on land and smaller groups (called rafts) in the water . Breeding areas are called rookeries.
We stopped at Piedras Blancas to show Flat Charlie and Flat Stanlina the Elephant Seals.
The Elephant Seal:
- is the largest pinniped (seal) in the world; it weighs over 2 1/2 tons. Bulls weigh up to 5,000 pounds (2,300 kg) and are up to about 15 feet (4.5 m) long. Cows weigh up to 1650 pounds (750 kg) and are up to about 12 feet (3.6 m) long;
- can stay underwater longer than any other mammal (up to two hours);
- travels the farthest of any mammal each year (up to 13,000 miles, or approximately 21,000 kilometers); They swim between warm breeding grounds (on Californian and Mexican beaches, from December to March) and cold feeding grounds (in the northern Pacific Ocean near Alaska, USA); and
- dives extremely deep into the ocean—Males can dive to 2600 ft (800 m); females can dive to 2000 ft (600 m).
Taxonomic Classification:
Class Mammalia (mammals)
Order Carnivora
Suborder Pinnipedia
Family Phocidae (earless or true seals)
Subfamily Monachinae
Genus Mirounga
Species M. angustirostris.
The Friends of the Elephant Seal website: http://www.elephantseal.org
Our visitors noted two distinctive traits elephant seals possess which cannot be discerned from a photograph:
1. They are, according to Flat Stanlina, "very stinky".
2. They are, as the video below will testify, quite noisy.
Perhaps, then, a more thorough title to this video would be "The Fat, Sandy, Stinky and Noisy Elephant Seals of Piedras Blancas." This is however, a mere suggestion.
Harmony, California. Population: 18
Harmony was founded in 1869 by Swiss immigrants who started up several dairy ranches and a creamery. The settlement was not without incident, there were a number of rivalries in the new community which eventually led to a murder. In 1907, owners and ranchers agreed to call off the feud and decided to call the town by its present name of Harmony as a symbol of their truce.
The Harmony Valley Dairy Co-op was founded in 1901. Soon there was a dairy management office, dormitories for employees, a livery stable, a blacksmith and later a gas station. Later additions of a school, a feed store, and a post office gave Harmony official status as a community.
At its peak, the creamery employed 10 workers, producing high quality dairy products, including butter and cheese that gave Harmony name recognition statewide. The creamery purified butter by cooking it in the traditional Swiss way: clarifying and giving it a golden color. Old-World dairymen claimed butter produced by this method never turned rancid.
Given Paul Squibb's previous commentary about the volume of butter being shipped to San Francisco via Cambria, this area was clearly a very good place to be a dairy farmer.
Tourists traveling Hwy 1 often stopped in Harmony for fresh buttermilk including famed (infamous?) publisher William Randolph Hearst, as did many of the Hollywood celebrities who were frequent guests of Hearst. Hearst's opulent home (also known as Hearst Castle) is in San Simeon, 12 miles northwest of Harmony.
At its peak, the creamery employed 10 workers, producing high quality dairy products, including butter and cheese that gave Harmony name recognition statewide. The creamery purified butter by cooking it in the traditional Swiss way: clarifying and giving it a golden color. Old-World dairymen claimed butter produced by this method never turned rancid.
Given Paul Squibb's previous commentary about the volume of butter being shipped to San Francisco via Cambria, this area was clearly a very good place to be a dairy farmer.
Tourists traveling Hwy 1 often stopped in Harmony for fresh buttermilk including famed (infamous?) publisher William Randolph Hearst, as did many of the Hollywood celebrities who were frequent guests of Hearst. Hearst's opulent home (also known as Hearst Castle) is in San Simeon, 12 miles northwest of Harmony.
Junction of Highway 1 (Pacific Coast Highway) and Harmony Valley Road
Flat Charlie and Flat Stanlina pose by the Harmony sign
This friendly cat came through the fence to say hello. We cannot help but think that he must reflect back on the good old days in Harmony when his great grandfather moused around the old creamery and helped clean up any spills.
Downtown Harmony all a-bustle on a Sunday afternoon.
The old Harmony Creamery
Note Paso Robles to the east.
Hearst Castle
(as seen from Highway 1 in San Simeon, California)
A zoomed in view of the castle, which Hearst himself called either "The Ranch" or La Cuesta Encantada (the enchanted hill).
Here is a link to the California State Parks website for Hearst Castle:
Morro Rock and the Nine Sisters
Morro Rock is one of the Nine Sisters (or Morros), a chain of nine volcanic peaks and hills between Morro Bay and San Luis Obispo, California. The peaks were created over 20 million years ago as volcanic plugs of magma welled up and solidified inside softer rock which has since been eroded. They support a wide variety of plant, animal, and bird life.
View of Morro Rock from Cayucos, California
Morro Rock has an elevation of 576 feet. It is also called "the Gibralter of the Pacific". Juan Cabrillo reported sighting it in 1542-though it was hardly a "first sighting" given that the
area was already inhabited by Native Americans.
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| View of Morro Rock from the Morro Strand |
At one time, Morro Rock was surrounded by water. It was quarried on and off from 1889 to 1969, and provided material for the breakwaters of Morro Bay and Port San Luis Harbor . It is now protected and is home for the endangered Peregrine Falcon.
The peaks in order from Morro Bay to San Luis Obispo including their height:
(Davidson Seamount, disregarded as part of the chain, is submerged about 2 1/2 miles offshore of Morro Rock.)
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(Davidson Seamount, disregarded as part of the chain, is submerged about 2 1/2 miles offshore of Morro Rock.)
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- Morro Rock 576 ft
- Black Hill 665 ft
- Cabrillo Peak 911 ft
- Hollister Peak 1,404 ft
- Cerro Romauldo 1,306 ft
- Chumash Peak 1,257 ft
- Bishop Peak 1,559 ft
- Cerro San Luis (also known as Madonna Mountain) 1,292 ft
- Islay Hill 775 ft
We marked each of the Morros on this map with Google Earth:
In researching information on the Nine Sisters we came across a number of outstanding (and copyrighted) photographs, the links to these photos are provided below:
An exceptionally nice shot of the Nine Sisters taken from out in the water at Morro Bay:
A photo of Bishop's Peak taken from Cerro San Luis (also known as Madonna Mountain) in April 2008 . In the background are three of the Nine Sisters. Bishop's Peak was named by Catholic monks who found its three "points" to be reminiscent of a bishop's hat. Notice how green the landscape is after the heavy rains of the winter and early spring.
A view of the Sisters from atop "High School Hill" in San Luis Obispo:
Pismo Beach Monarch Grove
We stopped to show the California state flower to our visitors.
The California poppy (Eschscholzia californica) is native to grassy and open areas from sea level to 2,000m (6,500 feet) altitude in the western United States throughout California, extending to Oregon, southern Washington, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and in Mexico in Sonora and northwest Baja California. It became the state flower of California in 1903. April 6 is designated California Poppy Day.
The Monarch is famous for its southward migration and northward return in summer in the Americas which spans the life of three to four generations of the butterfly.
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| A close up shot of a cluster of Monarchs clinging to a Eucalyptus branch. |
Highest Grove Count by Year | |||||||
1990-1991 | 230,000 | 1995-1996 | 150,000 | 2000-2001 | 40,000 | 2005-2006 | 23,000 |
1991-1992 | 175,000 | 1996-1997 | 50,000 | 2001-2002 | 60,000 | 2006-2007 | 22,000 |
1992-1993 | 20,000 | 1997-1998 | 110,000 | 2002-2003 | 30,000 | 2007-2008 | 17,000 |
1993-1994 | 35,000 | 1998-1999 | 115,000 | 2003-2004 | 56,000 | 2008-2009 | 28,500 |
1994-1995 | 15,000 | 1999-2000 | 60,000 | 2004-2005 | 35,000 | 2009-2010 | 17,000 |
Source Dennis Frey Professor at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo | |||||||
Here is a short video from the Chicago Natural History Museum on the life cycle of the Monarch Butterfly:
We hope you enjoyed your visit Flat Charlie and Flat Stanlina, we'll be seeing you off soon!
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