Sario Hill: Exploring with Ms. Cortez

The Trip

Last month we were lucky enough to take my in-law's recently fixed up 1974 Cortez motor-home out for her maiden voyage (can you say that for motor-homes or is that only for ships?). Our destination was Morro Bay where we parked Ms. Cortez at the Morro Strand RV park. I've never stayed in an RV park (that I can remember anyway) so I'd say this place was pretty nice. They had good facilities and full hook-ups at a reasonable price. As we are pulling in to Morro Bay and the kids had the windows open in the back. I heard them breath in deeply and say "Ahhh, smell that ocean air!" I took their advice, opened my side window, stuck my head out and breathed in deeply...Wow. The downside of Morro Strand RV park?...downwind from a Waste Water Treatment Plant. Nooot really ocean air that you're smelling there kiddos. But I was good and kept my mouth shut (at least in front of them) so they enjoyed the "ocean air" smell the whole trip. Kids, you gotta love 'em.

The Dunes

Almost immediately after we arrived the kids wanted to go to the beach. Morro Strand advertises that it is within walking distance from the beach so we put on our sweaters and headed west. Half a mile later we saw sand (phew!). The beach was actually really cool. There were dunes everywhere and the wind was so strong that all the sand was brushed smooth making it feel as though were were the first people to discover a lost island. So we recorded our discovery, searched for shells and treasures washed up to shore, and made our way along the beautiful beach towards town.

Flying Kites

The next day we woke up knowing exactly what we wanted to do...fly some kites! There is this great little kite shop down town Morro Bay that we visited after breakfast. Will had already done research on the type of kites that we wanted so we were quickly in and out and headed to the windy beach to set them off. It's so funny to me that holding a string and staring up into the sky at a little floating piece of material can be so exciting and interesting to a 5 & 6 year old. I got bored fast (wait, who's the child here?) and frustrated that the sand kept blowing on my camera and towel so we didn't spend too long on the beach before we trotted off on another adventure.

This picture depicts pretty much the entire trip...Molly and Daddy far ahead of Willy and me 'till something interesting happens and Willy sprints off to check it out for himself.

Climbing on Rocks

On our last day we headed out to Morro Rock to do a little rock climbing. Oh how thrilling it was to climb the rocks to the big red "DANGER" sign...and then keep going! It's not expressly forbidden to climb out on the rocks so of course we went for it. Molly and Willy carefully watched me to make sure I didn't slip or fall in any way. Really though, they are better climbers and more coordinated at that sort of thing than I could ever dream to be. The tide was down so we saw tons of colorful starfish and barnacles stuck to the rocks. We saw a few crabs, some weird seaweed and several things we couldn't even identify.