Elephant Seal Rookery

This is a video we shot at the Elephant Seal rookery.  The young males are just playing like they are fighting but they are practicing for the day when they will be fighting over the females.  This rookery is now inhabited by juvenile seals.  In one to two months the adult males and females will show up for the mating season.  The adult females will have a baby on the beach.  They will then mate and return in a year to to have another baby.  These seals migrate up to 10,000 miles.

Carmel, Big Sur and The Hearst Castle

Today we traveled to Carmel by the Sea, through Big Sur on the coast highway, and toured The Hearst Castle.  Along the way we passed some great coast scenery and an elephant seal rookery that had hundreds of elephant seals.  Some of these seals were over 10 feet long and over a 1000 pounds.  One of the volunteers said that the really big adults weighed up to 5000 pounds.  We took the Hearst Castle tour and it was great.  You get to see how the top 1% of the top 2% of the other half live.  It's beautiful.  Look at the pictures and they still don't do it justice.

A travel note.  If you want to drive the coast highway, don't bother going north of San Francisco.  The coast highway from Monterey to San Simeon has all the pretty places you would want to see and you would save one entire day.

Nonette on the beach at Carmel.  We looked for Clint but never saw him.

The following are from the drive through Big Sur

 The best looking gas station I have ever seen.

Hearst Castle

Monterey California

Today we spent the whole day in Monterey California.  The first part of the day was spent at Fisherman's Wharf where we had lunch and did some shopping.  Later we went to Cannery Row for more shopping.  Nonette and I then drove around the coast of the Monterey Peninsula where we got some pictures of the coast.  Later we went back to Cannery Row for dinner.  This is a beautiful area.  

A whale at Fishermans Wharf.

Everyone brought their seal from home and left it on these rocks.

Nonette on Cannery Row

Some picture around the coastline

 There were some big waves today.

Nonette looking real good.

Kinda had the white balance messed up on the lighthouse.

Sunset on the coast at Monterey

Another great day!