That's What She Said: Tug Tour along the coast to LA

We've been on-the-go for several weeks, now I'm finally calming down, catching up, planning for the rest of this year (one of my favorite activities).

As part of catching up - here's "what we did on our Christmas vacation"... we got the truck out of storage and headed down the California coast.

Starting at Monterey and the harbor for a bit of animal watching. An adorable otter was swimming around under the pier:

In fact, he attracted some attention as he found something (a clam?) that needed breaking into, so he floated on his back and started whacking at it. This photo doesn't do it justice:

But I also got a video! One of my better catches - because the otter ALSO came up with a rock to use for pounding the clam open (at least as long as it could balance the rock on its stomach). We've never seen anything quite like this:

More wildlife, possibly a California sea lion (I need to get better at my marine animal ID'ing):

Cute houseboat! I wonder if someone lives here:

We drove around town to check out the surf and shoreline in a couple spots:

Dolphins were leaping around in the bay (this really is a great place to bring binoculars), and I actually caught one on camera... sorta:

I love a big surf day when exploring the coast, several reminders of Hawaii during our drive:

A memorial to John Denver - we had no idea his plane crashed near Monterey:

Kelp!

Attempting to sightsee through the fog... ah well, the day's almost over and we need to get to our campsite at Big Sur anyway.

Big Sur has a lovely, quiet campground, perfect for sleeping in the truck a couple nights. The weather was much improved the next day, yay! We did a bit of exploring in the campground:

And there was a mountain to climb, so of course (bummer that John's ankle kept him from joining me):

Quite a pretty trail heading up the valley:

Someone put some work into this trail cut into the hillside:

The mountains beyond:

There was some thick vegetation up there, always nice to have a good trail cut right through it:

Here's an obstacle (John would have been up here with a saw if he could) - I tried going around to the right and ended up thrashing around a bit, but I eventually found the trail on the other side. Going around to the left would have worked a lot better - I figured this out later on the way back down.

The last climb up toward the Mount Manuel ridge:

It seemed like the top, but there were higher points beyond and the trail kept going, so I had to follow it... down and up and down and up, no obvious summit. It's not the first time I've climbed a mountain and couldn't figure out where the actual top was located.

At least there were great views of the ocean along the way:

I finally found the end of that section of ridge, said "enough of that!" and came back to the original most obvious place to call it good. I debated trying to set up an FKT for this route up Mount Manuel, but without a definitive end point I'm not sure I'll pursue that thought.

The next day, back on the road and heading south. Wonderful views and plenty of places to pull over to check them out (it helps to not be in a hurry):

More waves on the rocks:

All kinds of colors on the beach:

Working on my "photography skills" and no, I didn't stage this:

I could sit here all day:

Kelpien tangle:

Lovely place for a midday picnic. John could sleep here:

Elephant seals! I scanned the ocean for whales the whole trip, didn't see any, but we sure found plenty of other marine life.

This one had dragged itself onto the beach and lay there mostly inert, except for an occasional flick of sand onto its back:

In the water the elephant seals are much more mobile, popping up their heads and making displays, occasionally challenging each other. Neat to watch:

One last look up the shoreline before we head inland:

Now for something different - since we were passing through LA, it seemed like a good time to swing by a couple presidential libraries. The Reagan library was super popular, that was unexpected. We parked lower down and had a nice walk up the hill.

Ronald and Nancy's grave site:

It's a beautiful spot with views all around, and it was neat to see another piece of the Berlin Wall (tear down this wall!):

Nice bronze statue:

It's almost like we aren't close to a big city:

We got to visit with some relatives that evening, then the next day we continued the theme with a stop at the Nixon library. Merry Christmas :)

There were several model trains on display in the lobby, and the more we looked at the intricate details, the more enchanted we were. The designer/artist was there to talk about them and answer questions, very cool.

Everyone loves skiing, including Santa and the dog: