Ladd Photos

The county preserve was much nicer than its name sounds. The hawk overhead didn’t think it was too bad either.

The hike up to the top of our local mountain was nice and the views were breathtaking. You could even see the ocean in the distance.

We all kicked off the New Year with a rugged hike along Lake Hodges. The boys have fun trying out their new (to them) camera. On the way back, we saw a beautiful coyote.

We had a shelter-at-home Christmas, so we missed hanging out with all the family. The boys still enjoyed opening their presents.

A few videos of them opening gifts:

There are not a whole lot of options regarding how to celebrate your birthday in a pandemic, so I went for a hike with my favorite people. We walked down the La Orilla trail which ran along the back part of the San Elijo lagoon.

On the way back up the trail, I surprised a bobcat, who dashed into the vegetation and then stared at us. It was dark so I had trouble getting a good photo, but you can barely make out his pointy ears and yellow eyes looking out from the bushes.

The trail itself wasn’t anything special. The boys had fun collection acorns fallen from the oak trees along the path.

On the way back, a coyote showed up to check out what we were doing. I didn’t have my zoom lens, so I couldn’t get close up pictures of our visitor.

With Covid cases getting under control, we decided to risk a trip to the Safari Park. It is hard to believe that it has been 10 months since we had visited, when we normally visit monthly, if not more often. There were more people there than I would have liked, but everyone was good at wearing their masks.

Baseball seasons were cancelled, but we still find time to grab an unused field and keep the boys’ skills sharp.

School is taking on our couch this year, due to the Covid pandemic. We still ran the kids by their schools so we could get a photo.

We started off our day of hiking at Montaña de Oro, walking along the cliffs. Then we headed further inland, to the Elfin Forest by the back end of the Morro Bay estuary. We had the mini oak tree forest all to ourselves for exploring.

The boys enjoyed playing in the water and collecting sand dollars at a nice beach in Cayucos, off the beaten path. I used to play at this beach when I was their age.

After stopping off to say hello to the elephant seals, who were mostly out to sea, we went for a hike on a gorgeous San Simeon day.

We spent all afternoon on San Simeon Point, surrounded by the ocean, walking along the cliffs and through the trees. The boys enjoyed exploring the rock formations flowing into the ocean.

The boys wanted to walk around Cal Poly; they love to explore where they might be attending college. Because of Covid, we pretty much had the entire place to ourselves.

We started off with the idea of just hiking around the Lemon Grove trail at the base of Cerro San Luis Obispo, also known as Madonna Mountain. But, the hike was going well so we decided to take another trail to the “M”, placed on the mountain by Mission High School.

After we made it up that trail, we were halfway up the mountain, so we decided to challenge ourselves to make it to the top. The view from on top of the peak was amazing.

Spending a nice lazy afternoon walking around downtown San Luis Obispo.