Moro Bay & Kirk'sCreek

Moro Bay & Kirk’s Creek State Park

Dec. 2 & 3

Morro Bay, CA

Morro electric plant stacks

About 75 miles further North on US 1 up the California Coast lies the little town of Moro Bay.  I have been here several times.  There is nothing really spectacular about the town.  It has a small waterfront, an electrical plant with three outrageous smoke stacks that defy acceptable slenderness ratios and a geologic rock.  This rock is big.  More like a small dense mountain that pops up out of the bay like a glacier with such presence that it was used as a navigational aid for the early explorers and has been designated an historic monument.  This is a singularly big rock probably 5 times larger than the one at Cannon Beach, Oregon.  Breakwaters and roads are tied to it.  It is the dominant  piece of Moro Bay.  Moro Bay also has one of the largest wildlife estuaries in Central California.  With all this the town is in a time warp of about 40 years ago and its denizens are so laid back one needs to poke them with a stick to get any action. We stayed in a tiny RV park, Cypress RV,  right in town.  I mean right in town!  One block away was Main Street.  Any town with an RV Park that close to town is not moving too fast.  it was a nice place but the owner had recently red bricked the entire lot except for the actual vehicle spots.  That’s right, bricked the whole site with brick in a herringbone pattern no less. Felt like 20 RV’s parked on an immaculate patio. It actually was clean looking and a very straight line job with well planned drainage.  And it was a quick walk to town.  I walked to get a hair cut from a real one chair barber shop  and was the 5th in line with two others behind me.  The barber, Liz, was thin and in her late 60’s and I got the scoop on a lot of the history as each elderly customer caught up with all the doings and comings and goings of families and friends of long ago that Liz still remembered and seemed to know all about.  It was a fascinating view of small town Americana.

1/2 a block away was Bottles - a liquor store/deli with burger, fries and any size soda for $3.99.  That was any size soda so as I type this many hours later I still sip at a 44 oz. foam bucket of soda next to me.  Its old fashioned grilled burgers wrapped in red and white checkered paper with thick fries seasoned with chili powder.   Don’t miss it when you’re in town. 

KIkr's Creek St. Park, S. of Big Sur

 Two nights of kicking back with TV! and we were ready to be moving up the coast this time a 60 mile leg up US1 that will take more than 2 hours with the narrow twists clinging to the side of the cliffs above  pewter grey Pacific waters.  Every now and then a “Rough Road” sign was thrown in for good measure.  But we made it to another small site on the ocean side of the road.  This time it was a small peninsular bluff high above the water.  We won a rare cloudless and fog free  day on the coast.  At Kirk’s Creek State Park 60 miles South of Big Sur we lucked out and got the last spot right on the edge which I thought was the best site with our own grassy meadow to the cliff’s  drop off.  This outcrop was centered in a giant bay of mountain walls.   A sad flimsy wire fence was all that kept one from slipping over the wet grass to the rocks 300 feet below. We are isolated.  No internet,  phone, potable water, electric or sewer.  We are going to stay two days anyway as the site is just too spectacular.  The Pacific Ocean from this vantage covers all the earth that we look upon.

Camp site Kirk's Creek

Last year on my motorcycle trip down the Coast to LA I saw this site from above.  It was warm then and the site looked completely filled up with tents like colored mushrooms.  An emerald grassy bluff that projected out and high above the ocean.  I took mental note to try and find out the name but that slid back into my memories of collective detritus.  I did not realize that this was the same place that JoAnn had mapped out in her daily navigation work.  A Pleasant surprise indeed.

Yesterday we just sat around and read.  I have just about read everything to the point where in desperation I read maps, brochures, anything with print. W also prepared a grand Mexican feast with genuine tamales picked up in  Cardenas

US1 Pacific Coast, CA.

Mexican Supermarket in Indio, Calif.  Jo and I had a great time in a store so large that carried so much Mexican goods.  The bright colorful stacks of peppers I had never seen nor heard of.  The meat counters were a little strange to my eye though as every conceivable part of animal and fowl was piled high including chicken feet.   So we had last evening a great Mexican feast (sans chicken feet).  We have not denied ourselves good meals on the road.

Pampas Grass

Also yesterday afternoon a Saturday the whole camp emptied out.  We and the host were the only occupants of this peninsular bluff.  The host was a little suspect being a single guy, usually the Park Department hires only couples, with his Corvette and motorcycle parked beside a run down old motorhome and piles of tarps covering stuff surrounding his rig.  I think this is probably considered one of those “outpost” assignments that is low on the desirability list.  It is so isolated here.  No communication, not even drinkable water  in this huge bay rimmed by steep rock walls.  To each side US1 on the cliffs twists and turns, appears and disappears as a thin brown cut around the ends.  The few cars are seen as twin points of headlights or tail lights that move cautiously slowly downward from the South then upward on the North like tiny beetles on the walls.

Our campsites personal space!

Last night we had a blow.  It was the convex lens like shape of bay and walls to each side that concentrated the winds upon this grassy outcrop with a force that gusted the Airstream with slams.  It was rock and roll and we were thankful that we had left the Airstream hitched to the truck for the extra rigidity and weight.  There was no sleep for the couple of ours that it raged.  The rains peppered and the winds howled.  And who should come walking to our door in the middle of all this storm and bluster but Mr. Host.  “Someone is coming .  I think its the host” Jo said in the darkness.  We were the only people here so what would he want at this time and type of night.  I threw on my sweats and went to the door with my high powered flashlight. He hadn’t knocked yet so when I forced open  the door against the wind and rain his fist was raised near my nose poised to knock and his face was about 12” away from the beam of my light. Shit!  He scared the f.... out of me! in his hooded jacket and metallic object in his fist (a mini light) and a stupid grin on his face slick and whipped with rain! “ Jesus! You scared the fuck out of me!  What’s up?!” I groused.  “Well you did not pay for tonight.” he grinned.  What the hell?  In the middle of a storm he says this to the only campers in the park with a stupid/sheepish grin on his face!  I told you he was strange but JoAnn again had seen  something about him she liked when we first arrived. 

Big Sur

He had this paid deposit slip in his hand we had slotted into the metal tubes that are at the gates of all parks.  The slip was torn and thoroughly wet and about as useless as wet toilet paper.  I told him we paid for two night and this was our second night.  Did he take into account that we only paid half price with our Golden Age discount the membership number written on that wet rag he was holding?  Meanwhile the wind and rain continued to howl and whip.   “Well, OK, I’ll check it again.” and he walked away trying to flatten out the limp paper.

“I told you he was strange. What the hell was that all about? He spooked the hell out of me!”  I said.   “Oh Tony, he was just walking up to the door when you opened it” Jo said.   “A move like that could get one’s head blown off.  Banging on your door on an isolated bluff in the middle of nowhere with a full storm raging”  

“Oh Tony, calm down.”

“Shit.”

The morning broke much nicer and the storm made the air, if possible, even more pure and bracing.  

Big Sur