Harmony Headlands Virgin Visit

Today the El Ejercicios (well, a small contingent of them anyway) conducted a couple of coast walks along the north coast of San Luis Obispo County. For various reasons most members were unable to join us so we looked at today as partly for us and partly a recon operation for future walks for the rest of the group. Our first walk of the day was a first-time visit to Harmony Headlands State Park, a newer state park on the Central Coast of California. In attendance were Kameron McMeekin, Sarah Masters and her beau Anthony and lastly, myself. Dogs are unwelcome in the state parks system (an outrage worthy of a future rant here) so I had to leave my dog at home. Upon parking our two cars in the parking lot adjacent to Highway 1 we headed out the main trail towards the coast a couple of miles away. The following images were taken in the order they appear below. *NOTE: my camera battery pooped out while visiting this park and I was unable to take any additional photos for the remainder of the day.  

Following our visit to Harmony Headlands State Park we headed up the coast to Cambria, CA, and had lunch at Sandy's Deli where I had my precious, yes, my presshhhhiooouuussss Nanner Nutty Smoothie which I washed down with a Big Sur Tuna Avocado Sandwich.

Following the ensuing foodgasm I achieved from that culinary indulgence I headed up the coast in a cloud of dopamine and endorphins with just Kameron at this point as Sarah and Anthony had to leave us for work.
We drove all the way up to Ragged Point as Kameron had not been that far up Hwy. 1 before. We then turned around and headed back down the coast to the elephant seal rookery and watched the show for a little while.

After that we drove down to the old San Simeon townsite and parked at Sebastian Store intending to walk out to the end of San Simeon Point. Parking outside William Randolph Hearst State Park proper in order to avoid paying the parking fee we walked down to the beach and walked west until we reached the start of the trail out to the end of San Simeon Point. From there we walked out to the end of the point where we saw a gray whale leaving the cove and headed out to sea around the point. After exploring the forest of blue gum eucalyptus and Monterey pine we headed back to the car and drove home.

All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).