It has been a while since we camped in HMB after going so many times in a few months. It is one of our favorites since there are many walks/hikes we can take from the campground or within a few miles. Plus the bakery!!! We love the Coastside Sourdough bread. Better than my fresh bread I think.
We got one of the beach sites although the bluff was a little high on this one. The campground was about half busy but lots of empty sites in the middle and the far edge by the road. The first night however, we (?I) we’re kept awake by the neighbors laughing and hooting and hollering until after 11:30. Ugh. We had a pretty good hike planned and Dave was trying to get some reservations for August so we get up fairly early. Grrr….but they had fun.
The first full day there we went to Ano Nuevo State Park to see the elephant seals. It is quite a hike there compared to Point Reyes, Drake Beach, but lots more seals. The females have started leaving the weaners behind. They nurse almost nonstop for 28 days and then just up and head back to sea. The pups do not know how to swim or hunt or anything. And they are sooooo adorably fat. We did see two that had headed into the dunes and were pretty wasted away but also lots of others who group together and yell loudly. Eventually they get hungry and go to sea. Only about one third will make the first year. Afterwards we stopped at Pie Ranch, of course, and Dave had a lime pie and I had an ice cream sandwich. So tasty!


The following day was VERY windy so we postponed our walk into town and played Wingspan for most of the day. And ate snacks. It is a rough life we lead in King Tut. Especially since we have power so we have a heater going all day! Happiness. I believe he won one more game than I did, but it was a lot of fun being pretty lazy. We did get about 6000 steps in around the campground whenever the weather settled.
Then we walked to the bird preserve and went to go on our long oceany walk through the trees that leads us to town. Well, it has rained a lot. And it is pretty muddy especially on the trails. We ended up going off course, slogging along, ducking under branches and taking animal trails until we finally found a street that lead out to Highway 1. Messy but actually kinda fun. So we walked into town from the southern edge and go to the bakery to get our bread and a raspberry buttercream thingy that is beyond sweet. So tasty. And then back to the campground. It was a long day.
Then we decided we would go to Pillar Point on Friday and walk around Maverick Beach and up over the hill. That way we could get clam chowder since it is a Friday in Lent. Only the weather got us again. So we played birds again and finally Dave says, “let’s go get chowder” and off we went. It was still pretty windy but had stopped raining so we sat outside of Sam’s Chowder House and enjoyed our meal. We did the walk on Saturday instead, forgetting why we never go out into town on Highway 1 on the weekend. It was a nice hike but too many people. We might be approaching crotchety!


So we didn’t quite get to walk about as much as usual but we enjoyed our time in the rig, playing games (we’d be doing the same at home!). We had a couple campfires on the good days and got our bread and snacks. What an we say?
