Every year a large colony of even larger elephant seals comes home to Ano Nuevo state park to calf and mate. They come in December and stay through March. The bulls come in weighing up to 5000 pounds ( the nose alone accounts for 3 to 4 of those pounds at least). And best of all, the park rangers there will take you on a walking tour through the dunes where the huge beta males kill time and to the harems where the females and pups and alpha males reside. It's like being in a zoo without cages. The guides even offer to carry unruly three year olds up sandy hills when their mothers have sadly miscalculated the difficulty of the hike and are themselves already encumbered by their own little pup in a bjorn. Fortunately my cousin Kendall was with us and helped haul little Ella around for me. Otherwise we might still be there. I've never been so grateful my kids are in the 5th percentile for weight. By the end of the 2.5 hour tour we were all a little tired, damp, dirty and hungry (and at least one of us was questioning the wisdom of making such an excursion without the Pater Familius) but it was not a sight to be missed. Especially when a huge male drug himself directly across our path and forced us to pass about five feet from him.
Some one asked me a few days ago what I liked best about Palo Alto and he laughed when I responded truthfully "marine mammals". But I wasn't joking. I love being an hour or less away from this kind of stuff. And Ella really liked meeting new friends. She eventually even took out her thumb, but by then it was raining so hard I didn't think it wise to expose my iPhone to the elements and take more pictures. My children on the other hand, are water resistant.
-- Post From My iPhone
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